Labels & Labeling: The Global Voice of the Label and Package Printing Industry
Labels & Labeling is the international magazine and news service for the label and package printing industry, launched in London in 1978 and published today by Informa Markets. What began as the first magazine aimed directly at the label industry — at a time when labels were barely regarded as an industry in their own right — has grown into a global media brand read in 114 countries, with a website that serves as the daily portal for the worldwide label trade, and with close ties to the Labelexpo Global Series of exhibitions, the Label Academy training resource and the Label Industry Global Awards.
From its London origins, the title has documented every major transformation of its industry: the rise of self-adhesive labels, the growth of flexographic printing, the arrival of digital presses, RFID and smart labels, personalisation, and the sustainability pressures now reshaping packaging. Few trade publications can claim to have reported on, researched and helped educate an entire global industry for more than four decades; Labels & Labeling can.
Overview
Labels & Labeling is a business-to-business media brand serving label and package printing converters, their suppliers, and the brand owners who buy their output. Its print magazine is published bimonthly, its website at labelsandlabeling.com is updated with news every day, and together they deliver innovations, case studies, company profiles, market analysis and technical coverage to a professional readership. The magazine is printed in the United Kingdom, carries the ISSN 1478-7520, and is distributed internationally, including periodical mailing in the United States.
The brand sits within a wider labels and packaging division that also organises the Labelexpo Global Series of exhibitions and conferences around the world, runs the Label Academy as a global education and training resource, and stages the Label Industry Global Awards, which celebrate innovation and excellence in the industry. Publishing, events, training and awards together make the group the central information platform of the global label trade.
History and Founding
Labels & Labeling was launched in London in 1978 by its founding editor, Mike Fairley, and the first issue was published in January 1979. It was the first magazine aimed directly at the label industry, created because relevant information on trends and technologies was often difficult to find in the general printing and packaging media of the day. The international focus was evident from the beginning: within its first couple of years the magazine already had subscribers in 20 countries.
From those humble beginnings, the title grew with the industry it served. Its fortieth anniversary in 2018 was marked with a special issue tracing the technological evolution of label printing, with contributions from companies such as Avery Dennison, Gallus, Mark Andy, Nilpeter and RotoMetrics, which had been advertising with the magazine since its very first year, and from regional figures across Europe, North America, Latin America, India and China. The anniversary coverage made the point that the magazine had not only reported on the industry's developments over four decades but had in many cases been involved in the technical and market research, education and training that took those innovations to market.
Ownership and Leadership
For many years Labels & Labeling was published by Tarsus Group, the international B2B media group founded in 1998, which also organised the Labelexpo Global Series. Tarsus was owned by Charterhouse Capital Partners from 2019, and in March 2023 Informa — the international academic, B2B markets and digital services group — agreed to acquire Tarsus for an initial enterprise value of $940 million. Labels & Labeling is now published by Informa Markets, alongside the Labelexpo exhibitions, within Informa's enlarged portfolio of specialist B2B brands.
Leadership of the labels and packaging division passed to Jade Grace, appointed managing director of the division after the Informa acquisition. Grace had joined the Labelexpo Global Series team in 2004 and served as event director and then portfolio director, playing a key role in the growth of Labelexpo Europe, opening the group's India office and relaunching its presence in Southeast Asia. On the editorial side, Chelsea McDougall was appointed editor of the magazine, having previously been its North America editor; she became only the fourth editor in the magazine's history, succeeding group managing editor James Quirk, and her role also covers educational content for the Labelexpo portfolio, including conferences, master classes and the Label Academy.
Services and Distribution
The magazine and website serve readers in 114 countries. Print distribution is organised internationally, with copies printed in Portsmouth in the United Kingdom and US distribution handled through periodical mailing arrangements. Subscriptions are managed centrally, and the editorial and commercial operation has long worked through regional offices and correspondents, reflecting the magazine's model of global content gathered locally: regional editors and correspondents report from the major label markets of Europe, North and Latin America, India, China and Southeast Asia.
Digital distribution began with the launch of labelsandlabeling.com in 2001. The site quickly expanded from an online home for the magazine into the global portal for the label industry, with news updated every day. For the worldwide community of converters, suppliers and brand owners, it functions as the first stop for the latest innovations, case studies and company profiles — the daily news wire of an industry whose printed magazine appears bimonthly.
Editorial Coverage
The editorial territory is the complete label and package printing value chain. Converting technology — presses, finishing, inspection and materials — sits at the centre, surrounded by coverage of inks and substrates, prepress and workflow software, digital printing, embellishment and the business of running a converting company: mergers and acquisitions, investment, recruitment, regulation and sustainability. The magazine's long-serving columnists reflect that breadth, with dedicated voices for technical matters, sustainability, mergers and acquisitions, and branding and design.
Anniversary retrospectives show how completely the magazine's archive maps the industry's history: the rise of flexo, the growth of digital printing — estimated by the late 2010s to account for nearly half of all new label press installations — RFID, augmented reality, personalised labels and the environment have all been charted in its pages. Case studies of individual converters, from family businesses investing in their first press to groups building web-to-print models, give the coverage its practical, shop-floor character.
Clients and Media Partners
As a trade publication, Labels & Labeling's commercial partners are the suppliers to the label industry: press manufacturers, materials producers, ink and software companies and finishing-equipment makers, many of whom have advertised with the title for decades — some, as the fortieth-anniversary issue recorded, since its very first year. Its readership of converters and brand owners is the audience those suppliers want to reach, in print, online and at the Labelexpo exhibitions where the same community gathers in person.
The brand's closest partners are its sister operations within the same division. The Labelexpo Global Series organises the leading label and package printing exhibitions and conferences around the world, from the flagship Labelexpo Europe to shows in the Americas, China, Thailand, India and Mexico. The Label Academy provides printed, online and in-person education and training for the industry, and the Label Industry Global Awards honour innovation and excellence. Editorial, events and education reinforce one another: the magazine reports the industry, the exhibitions showcase it, and the academy trains it.
Digital Platforms
Labelsandlabeling.com, launched in 2001, is the brand's daily engine. News is updated every day, and the site carries the magazine's features, case studies and company profiles alongside market intelligence and people moves from around the world. The website's role has grown from digital companion to the industry's global portal, the first destination for professionals checking the latest developments in label and package printing.
The digital operation is integrated with the group's events and education platforms: Labelexpo show coverage, conference and master-class content, and Label Academy material all flow through the same editorial system, and since the Informa acquisition the brands have been positioned to benefit from the group's wider digital services and first-party data capabilities. A redesigned identity across all Labels & Labeling products, first unveiled around its thirtieth anniversary, established the consistent look the brand has carried across print and online formats ever since.
Coverage Areas
Coverage is genuinely global. The magazine is read in 114 countries, and its reporting network spans the industry's major regions: Europe, where the title was founded and where Labelexpo Europe is the sector's flagship exhibition; North America, where the magazine maintains editorial leadership and a US mailing operation; Latin America; India, where the group opened a dedicated office in Gurugram; China, with representation in Shanghai; and Southeast Asia, where the group relaunched its presence. Regional market specialists contribute local knowledge, so that a converter in São Paulo, a supplier in Shanghai and a brand owner in Chicago all read coverage grounded in their own markets as well as the global picture.
Notable Work
The magazine's most distinctive contribution to its industry has been educational as much as journalistic. Through its involvement in technical and market research and in training — formalised in the Label Academy, the global training resource whose content its editor now oversees — Labels & Labeling helped codify the knowledge of a young industry: how presses work, how materials behave, how markets grow. Its anniversary issues, gathering the recollections of industry figures from every region, stand as a historical record of label printing's transformation from a cottage trade into a global technology industry.
The Label Industry Global Awards, part of the same brand family, give public form to that role, celebrating the innovation and excellence the magazine documents. And the title's longevity itself is a form of testimony: four editors in more than forty years, advertisers retained since the first year, and an unbroken record of publication from January 1979 to the present day.
Recent Developments
The defining recent development was the change of ownership: Informa's acquisition of Tarsus, announced on 9 March 2023 at an enterprise value of $940 million, brought Labels & Labeling and the Labelexpo Global Series into Informa Markets. The combination aligned the labels portfolio with Informa's other specialist B2B brands in packaging, healthcare, aviation and infrastructure, and the group appointed Jade Grace to lead the labels and packaging division while Chelsea McDougall took the editorial chair. Under Informa, the brand continues to publish bimonthly in print and daily online, serving readers in 114 countries — the London-founded magazine that taught a new industry to recognise itself, now part of one of the world's largest B2B media groups.
