Flexo Wash Celebrates 30 years of Hard Work and Resilience

Published: September 07, 2021

2021 marks the 30-year anniversary of the creation of Flexo Wash by Henning Kongstad. In 30 years, this family-owned business now employs 50 cleaning experts at its Denmark headquarters and produces cleaning machines for the print industry world-wide. 

The story of Flexo Wash actually begins in 1989 with the invention of the first cleaning machine from a dishwasher, but to understand the complete story we need to go back even further — to 1977. Henning Kongstad started a label printing business in 1977 and bought his first printing machine in 1978.

It was this business that served as the impetus for inventing Flexo Wash almost ten years later. During that time, the equipment was washed by hand, which was fine with the types of inks used at the time. However, in the late eighties the business changed to water-based inks due to environmental concerns. 

“When the change came to water-based inks, my guys could spend all their time in between jobs cleaning the parts because it was so difficult to clean water-based inks. And I had a guy working for me who thought this could be done smarter, so he builds the first cleaning machine prototype from a regular dishwasher. Of course, it was not perfect, but we knew we had something here,” said Henning Kongstad, founder, Flexo Wash. 

The journey had begun and the second prototype for a cleaning machine was built at the local blacksmith. Most importantly, it could handle the inks and the intense workload that comes with the repeated cleaning that is necessary at a label printer business. 

From here on, Flexo Wash spent the next 30 years working hard and exhibiting the resilience it takes to bring the machines out into the world. In 2021, Flexo Wash can proudly say it has sold more than 5000 machines in 70 countries. Also, they are still a family-run business, with Henning’s sons at the helm.

For more information, visit https://www.flexowash.com.