Steffen Haaga · Director of Global Business Development · CERM · LabelExpo Barcelona 2025

Morten Reitoft from Inkish meets Steffen from CERM at LabelExpo 2025 in Barcelona. They discuss the number of Latin American printers, especially from Mexico, attending this year, and how both have recently invested in the region to expand their reach, seeing it as a fast-growing and promising market. Steffen notes that while global uncertainty has slowed some decision-making, European customers currently remain confident and are actively investing. He agrees that the current US uncertainty has, in some ways, strengthened European momentum, with many companies choosing to invest themselves out of potential crises.

Steffen reflects on how challenges can drive innovation and how the industry must keep evolving. They then revisit CERM’s recent acquisition of Omikai about six months ago, which he says has gone very well — the teams work smoothly together, their cultures fit, and Omikai’s strong infrastructure, combined with CERM’s label expertise, is already showing results. While Omikai will continue serving commercial print, CERM plans to build label, packaging, and flexo capabilities on top of it rather than narrowing its scope, expecting this will strengthen the core platform overall.

They also discuss how CERM’s partner ecosystem continues to grow, with new collaborations announced at the show, including those with MPS and Durst Group. This integration focus reduces manual touchpoints, improves cost control, and boosts production efficiency. Steffen concludes that CERM sees growth globally: in Europe, North America, and especially in emerging markets like Poland, Italy, Spain, and across Latin America, where they now also have local-language teams — a sign that their strategy is working.