Leading label producer, Abbey Labels has taken its first step into digital printing with the installation of a Xeikon 3300 at its premises in Bury St Edmunds in Suffolk.
The team at Abbey Labels had been researching the market for some time prior to making the decision to purchase the Xeikon 3300 machine. Tom Allum, chairman, said, ‘We had been examining the potential for digital and the equipment available for some two or three years. Question marks about speed of digital devices, print quality, and the space required to set up a digital operation were constantly on our minds.’
The company has an existing labels business, with multi-colour UV flexo presses providing the firepower, but digital was certainly a point of focus for the business. Having narrowed down the equipment choice, visits were made to both Labelexpo and drupa 2012 to help finalise a decision.
‘The latest range of equipment from Xeikon did seem to solve our speed queries, and the dramatic improvements in print quality in recent years ticked all of the boxes in that area of concern. What really made up our minds in favour of this product though was the lack of click charge, which simply made costing and quoting for jobs a lot easier, and the fact that the Xeikon people seemed to speak our language.’
New business
The addition of the company’s first digital press has opened new doors and enabled the company to create new business opportunities.
‘I would say that 90% of the work is new work – some from existing customers, but most of it from new customers. The new work is being mainly generated from our newly updated website. The ability to produce short runs or multiple sorts of colour labels without the associated cost of plates has allowed the company to compete for many orders that were just out of reach with flexo pricing,’ said Mr Allum.
The Xeikon 3300 is supported by an AB Graphics Digicon 2 for post printing production. ‘It is a great addition to the Xeikon. The new finishing line has allowed us to provide a wide range of embellishment options such as lamination, foiling, varnishes and spot colours to the labels. Due to the special die-cutting system on the Digicon we can use our existing stock of over 5,000 cutters which we have stored for our flexo work. This has made us very flexible for both new and existing customers.’
Abbey Labels is BRC registered for food production work. ‘This has been a tremendous help to us in generating business from the food sector. Local food producers have been especially keen to use our services: they don’t need millions of labels in most cases – more often they might need a few hundred labels of several different sorts. This makes them ideal customers for digital label printing,’ said Mr Allum. He continued, ‘The Xeikon has delivered in all of the areas that we expected, but the print quality has certainly surpassed our expectations. On the technical side, the machine has proved more reliable than we were expecting as well. We have also been very pleasantly surprised by the excellent back up service provided by Xeikon.’
Abbey Labels has been in existence for over 20 years and has grown into East Anglia’s leading label supplier in terms of supply range, quality, expertise, resources and in-plant capabilities. The company’s aim is to provide help, advice, and to produce, cost effective and compliant solutions for all labelling projects. With a focus on accuracy, print quality and operating meticulous control procedures throughout all aspects of label production, it is fully compliant to IS0 14001 environmental and BRC/IoP production standards.
The flagship narrow web label press of the Xeikon 3000 Series, the 3300 is the company’s most popular press model of the range. In addition to prime label applications, the press is also suitable for numbering, barcoding and personalisation. It runs at a top speed of 19.2 m/min and can handle production volumes of up to 380 sqm/hr.
