The L9 Group of international label associations announces the results of the 2025 L9 World Label Awards (WLA) competition, which was judged by an international panel of judges selected from each of the participating associations. The judging took place in Barcelona, Spain, the day before Labelexpo Europe 2025 opened.

The L9 is an alliance of global associations formed to jointly formulate policies and to collect strategic information of global interest to the worldwide label industries. The competition has been held in the existing format since 2001 with a change to the current class structure in 2012. The existing class structure encompasses all the principal printing processes and market applications used in the international label industry.

All member associations are invited to submit entries in any of the 24 classes of the competition thus ensuring that a true international flavour is maintained, and the results are a true representation of the worldwide label industry. This is actually the 34th year that the competition has been held (discounting the 4 years that it was not held because of COVID). In 2025 entries were received from the following associations: FINAT (Europe), JFLP (Japan), TLMI (USA), LMAI (India), FPLMA (Australia), SALMA (New Zealand), and CPF (China). In total 84 entries were received, resulting in 27 winners and 13 honorable mentions.

The judges for the WLA 2025 competition included: Steve Wood (FINAT), Keith Nagle (TLMI), Jon Murray (FPLMA), Araki Yoshitake (JFLP), Craig Nicholas (SALMA) Harveer Sahni (LMAI) and Prof. Xu (CPF).

Among the winners was Class 1: Flexo Line work by SALMA member MCC Auckland for the Musashi Fuel Range (above). This label shows a solid and even black coverage with excellent reversing out of very fine text. The company name in red is varnished, and a silver print is used to highlight other features.