The term ‘low migration’ is usually used to define materials used in the production of food packaging whose components do not migrate or travel to the actual food.

Low migration inks first appeared on the market in 2012 and are especially suitable for use in the food packaging industry. Such inks contain substances that either do not migrate at all or other substances in such small quantities that their migration limits –specific and overall– are well within the acceptable migration limits for the finished package.
Low migration inks are used in the production of wine labels although their use is not mandatory yet, as the content of the bottle does not come into direct contact with the label. Even though at this moment in time there is no industry standard for the production of such inks on an international level, a large number of wineries are opting their use. This does not mean that regular, non-low migration printing inks pose any danger.

As of October 2013, LabelPress, one of the long-established label printing companies in Greece with an illustrious reputation for producing quality food and wine labels, has been using low migration inks for the production of all Domaine Skouras labels.

Think for a moment why the use of such inks is necessary, even on a wine label that does not come into direct contact with the wine itself: our hands touch the wine label when we pick up the bottle, when we open it, when we serve the wine in the glass. With the same hands we put a piece of bread in our mouth, we greet someone and so on. In other words, the possibilities of ink particles migrating where they shouldn’t are indeed endless.

Many decades ago, people used to wear gloves to read their morning newspaper to avoid the migration of the freshly printed black ink on their fingers.