Yianni Moratidis is fairly new to the printing game having set up GENR8 Printing in 2018 to complement his entertainment business but this is not holding him back from trying out new things to see what sticks.

His latest piece of machinery to be installed at his Wallsend, NSW factory is a compact OKI Pro 1050 toner-based digital label printer and a Virgo converter. The addition of the CMYK plus white label printer and converter means he now has the capability for digital, wide format, personalised packaging and label printing.

Being located near the Hunter Valley wine region, he is aiming to tap into this market as well as continuing to extend into the growing number of side hustle businesses, and the booming wedding sector.

“I went into the printing game because it works in really well with my entertainment business. I book a lot of entertainment for weddings so while I am booking a soloist or a band, I can ask the customer what they need in terms of wedding stationery like invitations and welcome boards,” Moratidis said.

“And now with this label printer what we can do is we can make personalised stickers and even confetti.”

Moratidis said he could use his HP Latex 700 W printer to print labels, but said having this set up, priced at around $50,000, was less time consuming and required less set up then moving machines around in the lower level of his workshop.

“I got the bigger version of the Virgo cutter because eventually if we want to get 2 x 20 rolls, we can do that on this machine whereas the other configuration could only do 125. If we look at a bigger machine like the Durst or something else, we know we can still run it on this without having to spend another $100,000 on a cutting machine for now,” he said.

John Bryson of Inkdustrial sold the OKI set up to Moratidis.

Bryson said the OKI Pro 1050 offers print businesses a way to generate reliable cash flow as it enables a fast response to the growing call for short run, personalised labels with super-fast turnarounds.

“These days there is more short run orders, more demand for personalisation and there has been an increase in everyone’s side hustle during COVID. This OKI set up allows people that have got a candle business or something like that to have professional labels, but without having to commit to long runs which come from high-end digital and flexo printing,” Bryson said.

He added that label rolls are also hardier and less susceptible to tearing and other damage, compared to label sheets.

“With this set up customers can buy these labels once a month, every six weeks or every eight weeks, rather than once a year which means suppliers get better cash flow as they’ve always got jobs coming in. It allows for diversity and a quick pivot in the market,” he said.

“We saw with COVID everyone had to quickly pivot and change. Short run digital in labels, and in any format, allows business to change and adjust very, very quickly. Having a full digital printing and cutting set up allows for everything to be customised. So, there’s no standard sheets, no standard labels, it’s what the customer needs for their products.

“The OKI Pro 1050 label printer and converter also allows for white printing on clear labels. There is a big trend for using brown craft to get that natural look. The OKI is perfectly suited for printing white toner on brown craft stock to get a good colour and logo representation. You can then go through to clears, blacks and get real high value without having high value investment.”