The short answer
Label printing in Marrickville is supplied by Digital Label Services from Green Point on the Central Coast. The Sydenham Road brewery strip needs durable full-colour beverage labels carrying the standard drinks and pregnancy warning marks at the right sizes, so we supply printed labels, printers, label stock and consumables.
Digital Label Services · 7A Melissa St, Green Point NSW 2251 · 0431 942 464 · Monday to Friday, 8:30am–5:00pm
Send an enquiry
Tell us what you need labelled and we will come back with a tailored quote.
Prefer email? info@digitallabelservices.com.au
As of 2024 Marrickville held 67 hectares of land zoned for industry, concentrated in South Marrickville, and that zoning is why the suburb sounds the way it does on a Saturday afternoon. Breweries have been filling those light industrial tenancies since 2013, and the cluster is a fixture of our label printing Sydney work.
The Sydney Morning Herald called Marrickville the craft beer capital of Australia in 2022, and The Crafty Pint records it as home to more breweries than any other Australian suburb. Batch Brewing sits at 44 Sydenham Road and Heaps Normal at 2/10 Brompton Street. Before beer came market gardens, brick pits, wool, steel and cars.
Why does an old brick and wool suburb suit brewing?
Floor space and zoning. The industrial heritage runs from 1880s market gardens to brick pits, and Marrickville hosted the largest brickmaking firms in Sydney before wool, steel and automotive work took over the sheds. Those sheds have the height, drainage and three-phase power a brewhouse wants.
The same tenancies now hold roasters, distillers, food producers and makers of every description, with Addison Road running as a creative hub of more than twenty community organisations and artist studios. Label printing in Marrickville is short-run, frequently redesigned and rarely dull.
Which two numbers decide what your artwork carries?
Alcohol by volume sets both. Under Standard 2.7.1 a beverage above 0.5 per cent ABV must state its standard drinks, and one above 1.15 per cent must carry a pregnancy warning. A standard drink is defined as 10 grams of ethanol measured at 20 degrees Celsius.
That matters for a suburb brewing across the whole range. A full-strength pale ale, a mid, a session sour and a non-alcoholic can may share a brand and a canning line while sitting on different sides of both thresholds, which means separate artwork rather than one template with the ABV swapped.
What does the warning mark itself have to look like?
It is a specified design, not a design brief. The words PREGNANCY WARNING appear in upper case bold sans serif in red, specified as PMS 485, with the statement in sentence case black on a white background. A red element on every unit means the finished label needs full colour, whatever the rest of the artwork does.
The dates are settled. The requirement was gazetted on 31 July 2020, the three-year transition ended on 31 July 2023, and post-printed corrugated outers followed on 1 February 2024. Looking further out, Proposal P1059 makes energy labelling mandatory on alcoholic drinks from 13 August 2028, so leave room for it in the next redesign.
What does a brewery need beyond the label itself?
Labels are only half of it. A brewery buying cans needs artwork printed, a machine for date and batch coding, stock that survives a wet cold room, and labelling for the caustic and sanitiser containers on the same floor. A can heading to a bottle shop also needs a GTIN-13, built from a GS1 Company Prefix of six to nine digits.
Supplied and delivered into the Sydenham Road precinct:
- wine and beverage labels printed full colour for cans, bottles and growlers
- compare label printers if you are weighing up bringing printing in-house
- GS1 barcode labels for retail symbols and outer carton marking
- chemical and GHS labels for decanted cleaning and sanitising chemicals in the brewhouse
- label stock and materials chosen for condensation, chilling and ice bucket handling
How do labels and technicians reach Sydenham Road?
By road from the Coast. Marrickville is around 85 km from Green Point, roughly an hour and fifteen minutes via the M1, the M2, a harbour crossing and the City West Link. Technicians make that trip for installation, operator training, servicing and repairs, including printers supplied by someone else.
We hold no Marrickville premises and no local counter. Label materials, adhesives, inks and finishes should be selected according to the intended application and relevant Australian requirements, so ask us for samples to trial on your own cans before a full run is committed.
Which mandatory marks change with the container?
Pregnancy warning mark sizes step with container volume, so a 375 mL can and a 1 litre growler do not share the same artwork.
| Container volume | Pictogram | Signal words | Warning statement |
|---|---|---|---|
| 200 mL or less | 8 mm | Pictogram only | Pictogram only |
| Over 200 mL up to 800 mL | 6 mm | 2.1 mm | 1.6 mm |
| Over 800 mL | 9 mm | 2.8 mm | 2.1 mm |
Minimum sizes are set by section 2.7.1-9(3), and the signal words print in red specified as PMS 485 on a white background.
“Digital Label Services have delivered quality labels and consumables, cost savings and support for the last 7 months for our colour label printers ensuring that a key component of our business runs efficiently.”
Kim Jardine, General Manager, James Bennett P/L
Frequently asked questions
Our cans come off the line wet. What material copes with that?
A synthetic facestock with an adhesive rated for the application temperature and surface, rather than uncoated paper. Condensation, cold fill and ice bucket handling are three different problems, so tell us how the product is filled, stored and displayed and we will supply samples for you to test on your own cans first.
Do the same rules apply to a non-alcoholic beer?
Not in the same way. A product at or below 0.5 per cent ABV does not require a standard drinks statement, and one at or below 1.15 per cent does not require a pregnancy warning. Confirm your measured ABV before removing anything from artwork, because the thresholds are precise and the tolerance for error is small.
Do you supply the pregnancy warning artwork or do we?
You supply artwork and we print it, though we can advise on whether the pictogram, signal words and statement will hold their specified sizes once the label is scaled to your can. Confirm your specific regulatory obligations with Digital Label Services and your own compliance adviser before a run is approved.
How many labels make sense for a single-batch release?
Low volume covers 1 to 1,000 labels and suits a one-off release or a taproom exclusive, and digital printing needs no plates to get there. Medium volume starts at 1,000. Most label printing in Marrickville arrives that way, one release at a time, and the practical limit is artwork time rather than quantity, since each release needs its own compliant layout.
Can you help with labelling the chemicals in the brewhouse?
Yes. Decanted caustic, acid and sanitiser containers fall under workplace chemical labelling rather than food labelling, and Australia has required GHS Revision 7 classification and labelling since 1 January 2023. We supply printed chemical labels and durable stock for printing them on site.
Areas we also serve
Book a demonstration before the next batch is packaged
Send the can or bottle spec, the ABV and the release schedule, and we will recommend stock, a run size or a printer, with samples to trial on your own line first.
Get a Personalised QuoteSpeak With Our Printer SpecialistsCall 0431 942 464
References and further reading
- Food Standards Code Standard 2.7.1 — Federal Register of Legislation. ABV thresholds and mark sizes by container volume
- Pregnancy warning labels – design elements — FSANZ. PMS 485 red, typography and transition dates
- Energy labelling for alcoholic beverages — FSANZ. mandatory under Proposal P1059 from 2028
- Global Trade Item Number (GTIN) — GS1 Australia. GTIN-13 and Company Prefix allocation