Grafitec Label Presses has announced that the first Jetrion 4900 to arrive in the UK will be installed at Colorscan Imaging Products Ltd of Burton upon Trent. The deal was signed on the first day of drupa after Colorscan Director Keith Forster saw the machine in action and was impressed with its ability to provide fully digital, file-to-finished-product printing. Colorscan Imaging Products Ltd provides specialist products for the drinks industry, and the abilities of the Jetrion 4900 to provide a cost-effective solution to short run label printing as well as a fast and effective method of printing in white convinced the company to invest.

Keith Forster of Colorscan says: “We produce point of sales and other printed products for the real ale brewing industry. We only operate digital equipment, and currently most printing is done on a Xerox IGEN which is both fast, and of a high quality. Unfortunately it does not have a white ink capability, and to date no Xerox printer does. Since some of our business involves printing onto a metalized substrate, and this is a large growth market for us, we looked at various high speed digital printing equipment with a white ink capability.  Our company currently uses a Fuji Accuity for white ink printing. However, this is very slow when used with white ink and not best suited to our products.

“Investing in the 4900 produces many benefits. Compared with Fuji, the quality of resolution is higher, but more importantly, the inks are superior. The white has excellent opacity while the CMYK inks retain their translucent appearance on metalized substrates allowing for effects not available from the Fuji inks and not available on toner-based printers. Obviously, the two machines are intended for different markets and a direct comparison would be unfair.

“However, for our company making specialized products, the narrow width printing onto roll to roll media using the 4900 produces huge improvements in productivity and quality while allowing us to enter the short run label market. The operation of the printing web on the 4900 allows for wastage levels associated with sheetfed digital printers rather than webfed machines when used on short run printing, which is the bed rock of our business.It is this feature that convinced us to make this purchase against rival machines, together with the instant print and low maintenance associated with UV ink printing,” Forster says.