Labelexpo Europe 2025: Alpha‑Cure’s Highlights from Barcelona

The Alpha‑Cure team of Berenika Bond (Commercial Director), Colin Lee (Sales Manager) and Andrew Rhodes (Head of Marketing) have just spent four insightful days (16-19th September 2025) at Labelexpo Europe in Barcelona. With halls full of label technology, it was the perfect opportunity to reconnect with the print industry’s innovators and explore how UV curing continues to evolve.

Seeing Print Systems in Action

Events like Labelexpo are invaluable. They allow us to see how our UV lamps are used in real-world systems, how engineers integrate curing into workflows, and how the demands on our technology continue to shift.

What stood out this year was that mercury based UV technology remains central to high-performance curing, especially in areas where speed, depth of cure and flexibility across substrates are critical. While LED UV continues to develop, many OEMs and system engineers are embracing a balanced approach, leveraging both LED and mercury curing depending on the performance required.

That’s where our lamps continue to deliver: consistent, powerful output, long operating life, and proven performance in demanding production environments.

Strengthening Relationships Around the World

One of the best parts of Labelexpo is the chance to connect with those who know our products best. Our distributors and customers. Whether they were exhibiting or visiting, it was a pleasure to speak face-to-face again.

We had productive conversations with many contacts from across the world, including from Argentina, Egypt, India, the UK, Scandinavia, and of course more locally Spain. These meetings helped us:

• Understand regional market shifts, gain feedback on current opportunities and technology preferences

• Hear direct feedback on our performance, reliability and delivery

• Discuss application-specific needs, and hear feedback on current lamp testing for new systems

This kind of feedback is gold. It helps us keep refining the performance, reliability and flexibility that Alpha‑Cure lamps are known for.

What We’re Taking Forward

Here are the key takeaways for our team:

• Mercury UV still leads in many performance-critical applications, especially where deep, fast curing is essential

• Hybrid curing systems are gaining ground, but our lamps continue to play a vital role in delivering curing power where LED alone can’t

• Reliability and lamp lifespan are more important than ever, especially as production costs rise and downtime becomes costlier

• Personal relationships remain central, even in a digital world, a face-to-face conversation goes further than any spec sheet

Final Thoughts

Labelexpo Europe was more than just a showcase, it was a strategic touchpoint. It gave us clearer insight into how our lamps are being used, where the challenges lie, and what our customers will need next. A sentiment echoed by Colin Lee, our Sales Manager in the video below, “It’s a great opportunity for me to enhance my knowledge of the industry and also to see where our lamps fit into the systems overall”

To everyone we spoke to: thank you. To those we missed: we’d love to catch up. If you’re looking to optimise your UV curing, replace existing lamps, or want to discuss how Alpha‑Cure can support your system, get in touch.

We’re proud to be part of an industry that keeps evolving and we’re ready to be part of its next chapter.