Skelmersdale, UK / Aalsmeer, the Netherlands – In response to the growing demand and lucrative margins within the high-end labels sector, Sturdy Print, a prominent label printing company in the UK, embarked on a quest to source a digital press capable of surpassing the rigorous demands of this discerning market segment. They opted for a SCREEN Truepress LABEL 350UV SAI 7 colour machine.
“With this new UV inkjet press, we were able to ‘future-proof’ our company,“ says Alex Sturdy, Production Manager at family-owned Sturdy Print. “Flexo print is not always a viable option for meeting the growing demand for small print orders. At the same time, we see good opportunities in producing labels for nutrient and personal care suppliers, who often require higher-end labels. The agile and flexible nature of digital inkjet enables us to meet these requirements with much faster turnaround times.”
When Sturdy Print explored the market for a new digital inkjet press, it was struck by the reputation of reliability and low downtime SCREEN’s technology gained among Sturdy’s peers. “We heard people praising the SCREEN press. We chose it for its print quality and reliability. We also found it uses less ink and fewer chemicals than most of its competitors. These are critical factors for cost-efficiency and sustainability reasons,” Alex Sturdy says. “SCREEN’s entry-level machine can do everything we need. Our customers have praised its speed and print quality. Consistency of colour is a big thing too. The SAI press recently produced the same label five times in five different weeks and it came out exactly the same way.”
Sturdy Print says it can deliver print jobs that used to take two to three weeks using flexo in two to three days. Label designers have a free hand choosing colours, as the inkjet can reproduce almost any colour in the gamut. “The market we supply is in constant flow and often demands complicated labels, with increasingly more details, requiring high-definition images. These look excellent in inkjet digital quality. This technology is a step up in quality,” Alex points out.
In the near future, Sturdy Print expects to explore opportunities in the ‘unsupported film’ market, the slim film to cover food packaging. Alex: “As the Truepress is able to print on a wide range of substrates, we’re ready for this market segment with SCREEN’s press too.”
