London’s last canmaker embraces inkjet

William Say & Co produced 100 personalised cans using Fujifilm's inkjet technology

William Say & Co, London’s last independent canmaker, has produced 100 personalised tins as it aims to demonstrate the potential of personalised print to the metal packaging world.

The company, which has a history dating back almost a hundred years, used Fujifilm technology to print the tins, which it then gave away as Christmas gifts to valued customers.

‘We’ve been watching developments in digital print technology in our industry for a while,’ says Stuart Wilkinson, marketing and sales director at William Say & Co. ‘We actually had the privilege of working directly with Fujifilm to produce a short run of hot chocolate tins for a special Fortnum and Mason in-store display early last year. Since then, things have moved on even further.’

In 2020 Fujifilm entered into a technology partnership with Tinmasters – one of Europe’s biggest metal packaging printers. As part of this relationship, Tinmasters bought and installed an Acuity B1 inkjet printer at their site in Swansea.

‘We’ve worked with Tinmasters for many years,’ Mr Wilkinson continued. ‘Now they have this partnership with Fujifilm, and the ability to print extremely high quality short-run work, they were perfectly placed to help us. We’re really excited about the growth potential inkjet offers our business and our industry and we wanted a way to clearly demonstrate this to our own customers.

‘We printed a run of 100 tins, in full colour, each with a unique series number. It was a simple exercise that would have been extremely complex and costly using traditional offset print.

‘There used to be a lot of canmakers in London. Now we’re the only ones left. And in large part, it’s because of our willingness to seize opportunities like this that we’re still here, and thriving, and will be for many years to come.’