At Labelexpo Americas, Fujifilm North America has sold a Graphium digital hybrid, four colour plus white UV inkjet press, integrated with inline flexo and finishing, to Distinct Packabilities, a Shepherdsville, Kentucky-based print provider.
Distinct Packabilities, a wholly owned subsidiary of Publisher’s Printing Company, a fifth generation family-run business since 1866, is a premier provider of flexible packaging and label printing. It also offers a wide range of flexible packaging and prime label converting capabilities, along with in-house art, graphics, prepress and platemaking services.
‘Fujiflm and Distinct Packabilities are going to establish a new standard for digital print quality in the flexible packaging and prime label markets,’ said David Haley, vice president, Distinct Packabilities. ‘With a print asset of this magnitude in the hands of our experienced staff of some of the best printers in the world, we intend to shift a number of paradigms that have prevailed in these markets for too long when it comes to print quality.’
Expanding its services into digital printing was the next logical step for the company. Distinct Packabilities chose Graphium based on the capabilities of its hybrid design, incorporating digital and flexo printing into one platform, to create spot colours, respond quickly to short run demands, and produce flexible packaging and prime labels, without the common limitations often found throughout the industry. These newly added capabilities will allow the company to support brand owner’s needs for colours and graphics that stand out on store shelves.
Mr Haley said the Graphium offers labels and packaging printers a digital print quality and capability proposition which had previously not been available. He is anxious to get the press into the production environment in order to begin offering a new suite of products and services to current and prospective customers.
‘Its print capability can produce up to 13,240 feet per hour at a resolution up to 1080 dpi and an eight-level grayscale. This digital press will print all of the common substrates found throughout our other production processes while achieving excellent adhesion, light fastness, and durability. Also, for us, the ability to very quickly move in and out of a rapidly changing print schedule is very important,’ he added.
‘We believe it is the digital print asset that will allow us to re-establish many of the legacy paradigms throughout the industry when it comes to short print runs, fast turnaround times and incredible print quality,’ said Mr Haley. ‘We’re anxious to get it into the hands of our printers and start putting these super high quality, quick turn, short run printed products out into the marketplace. Our customers continue to need these capacities and their colour and graphics quality demands only continue to proliferate. We feel we now have an incredibly powerful weapon in our arsenal that will allow us to meet and exceed these demands.’
