Printed Packaging specialist Glossop Cartons is the first UK company to install Fujifilm’s Acuity LED 1600 UV LED inkjet printer, introduced earlier this year.
Established 30 years ago, Glossop Cartons offers litho printed cartons, wallets, blister cards, skin pack cards and packaging for the promotional, cosmetics, car accessories and luxury food business areas.
Jacky Sidebottom, director at Glossop Cartons, said: ‘We work with brand owners who in turn supply large high street retailers who demand accurate printed samples of their end products. We have to submit high quality prototypes to ensure that what they see is truly what they will get.’ She added: ‘Producing pre-prototypes is both expensive and time consuming due to the different production steps involved, so when we came across Fujifilm’s Acuity LED 1600 at drupa, we immediately recognised that it would allow us to become more competitive, and enhance our service level to our clients. We had been looking at similar devices for a while and we were impressed by the quality and value for money of the Acuity LED 1600. Those features struck us as unique selling points.’
The Acuity LED 1600 can run at up to 20 m2 per hour with high image quality. It supports substrates up to 1610 mm in width and is designed to print on wide format roll media, and rigid sheet substrates up to 13 mm thick (including PET, acrylic, polycarbonate substrates and lightweight boards). The printer runs six colours plus white and clear ink as standard and can apply these in a single pass. The printer is intended for large format applications such as posters, in-store POP and retail displays, as well as packaging.
Ms Sidebottom continued: ‘There is an increasing demand for short run and bespoke packaging, and digital technology perfectly suits this requirement. Fujifilm’s Acuity LED 1600 fills a gap in the market through its ability to produce outstanding prototypes in an effective way. Thanks to the Acuity LED 1600 we can now print, and subsequently cut out, a diverse range of substrates quickly and efficiently, and also create packaging solutions distinguished by special varnishing effects. The use of this technology improves our turnaround time and removes the traditional costs of litho print and die-cutting, both of which are costly for short proof print runs.
‘Fujifilm’s Acuity LED 1600 has enabled us to take our first steps into digital packaging and smoothly integrate it within our conventional production environment.’
Contact: www.fujifilm.co.uk/gs and www.glossopcartons.co.uk
