In September 2026, equipment evolutions are causing more interest from brands in laser marking directly onto packaging in lieu of conventional labels. Issues such as speed and image resolution limitations prevented the use of laser marking from achieving wider scale beyond the small marks, such as sell-by dates, where it has been used on packaging for decades, sources say. Now, the technology has advanced, and brands see it as a sustainability play.
Laser marking also helps to lower the amount of materials used to decorate packaging, such as inks, adhesives, shrink films and paper or plastic labels. United Kingdom-based paper and packaging company Mondi unveiled a laser marking concept in August, emphasizing alignment with design for recycling strategies.
The product is mainly intended for bag-in-box and e-commerce packaging. It consists of a corrugated box containing flexible packaging that is decorated by laser marking, but it can also be adapted to a variety of flexible packaging applications. Laser marking also eliminates the need for conventional decorative printing and plates, as per Mondi, while offering customers shorter lead times.
Another ideal example reflecting the new technology in the packaging industry involves Procter and Gamble’s improved packaging sustainability via laser marking and approached technology company LasX Industries, which resulted in a multiyear partnership. The main goals of the company were to reduce material and ink use and also to boost recyclability by creating a monomaterial structure. The partners declared it publicly their innovative collaboration in 2024 and also announced last fall that they brought the technology to market on caps for Tide laundry detergent.
“We took the cylindrical cap that we have on Tide, and we [added] dosing marks on one side, and on the other side we have messaging,” said Teo Medellin, director of global corporate packaging sustainability at P&G. The company has used what it dubbed Lazrmark on various rigid polyethylene and polypropylene containers. Previously, laser marking solutions weren’t practical “at high speeds, and with the high resolution that the packages need” while still being attractive for a mass-produced package, he said. The Cincinnati-based CPG sought out LasX because of that company’s expertise “to understand how to scale up the proposition. And that’s where we are today,” Medellin said.
The primary changes with laser marking in recent years have been with the controls and software, said Ethan Dinauer, vice president of global solutions at LasX. The digital workflow allows for quick file changes and no consumable materials. The company’s systems can operate at a speed of 400 bottles per minute or more, depending on the size and complexity of the artwork.
“This emergence of high-frequency pulse lasers can be paired with modern scanner technology to unlock unique speeds while maintaining resolutions that are required for full graphics printing,” he said. “High-frequency pulse lasers have advanced at rapid rates, and also some of the wavelengths that are required to address some of these packaging materials have improved.”
The systems typically pulse the laser 1 million to 4 million times per second for packaging decoration applications, Dinauer said. The Minnesota-based company’s current controller can support up to 10 megahertz.
“If you would have thought [before] about putting that in a 24/7 packaging environment, you would have said there’s not the reliability for it and potentially not the price point to create the economics,” he said. “But those sort of wavelengths have matured in the last five to 10 years.”
LasX has commercialized the solution as LaserSharp Marking. The more than two-decade-old company is experiencing a rapid hike in demand from the packaging sector, especially since publicly discussing the P&G project in recent months, Dinauer said. One of the four other CPGs LasX has engaged with has ordered equipment within the last three months.
The proprietary Lazrmark technology has been recognized by the Association of Plastics Recyclers and RecyClass as meeting or exceeding guidelines for packaging recyclability. The laser marking technologies integrate into packaging production lines. LasX provides laser modules as well as full turnkey laser sections, depending on customer needs, Dinauer said.
The ink-free laser marking technology is known to use a pulsed laser beam to alter the surface of packaging or a product. On the other hand, people are most familiar with laser carbonizing, or “burning”, a surface. LasX technologies use four different methods, such as ablation, which helps to remove material; reduction, which darkens the material; foaming, which briefly melts the surface and produces a slightly raised mark; and changing the material’s crystalline structure.
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