Footprint Printing, based in Mandurah in Western Australia, will soon expand its offerings into the labels space with the purchase of a new Epson SurePress L-4533AW digital label printer.
The company, thus far, has been a lithographic printer offering design, full colour printing and digital printing.
Footprint owners and father-son duo Patrick Oldfield and James Oldfield made the purchase at PacPrint through Epson distributor Fujifilm Business Innovation Australia.
Footprint has been a Fujifilm customer for cut sheet innovation and an Epson customer for wide format, but this is the first customer for both companies through their distributorship deal.
“We do a lot of digital work and offset lithographic. We saw an opportunity to diversify into labels as we’re very close to the Margaret River Winery region and want to create solutions in-house for our customer, Margaret River Wines,” James said.
Footprint has thus far been outsourcing most of its labels work.
“We have been doing a lot of sheetfed label work for short-runs. Our client is getting bigger and doesn’t want to be hand labelling. So, we’re going to be doing a lot of it on the Epson SurePress L-4533AW printer,” Patrick added.
“The lithographic side of our business is getting smaller and smaller too, so we will be filling up that gap with more labels work. This machine will support us for it because the quality that it produces is great and it’s easy to operate. It’s everything we need.”
The SurePress L-4533AW digital label press incorporates Epson’s MicroPiezo ink-jet printhead and uses industrial grade Epson SurePress AQ ink.
It is designed for converters who wish to produce general purpose and specialised labels in short and ultra-short print runs on mainly paper based stocks. It produces output on coated and uncoated substrates with a high colour gamut, high colour accuracy, and outstanding print resolution and precision.
Jobs are quick to set up and easy to complete with the absolute minimum in consumption, wastage and labour. Machines are compact, easy to install, cost effective to run, and can be managed by a single operator.
Fujifilm Business Innovation Australia senior product specialist Darren Yeates said its output is compatible with a wide range of industry standard finishing equipment for a low set-up cost with maximum production flexibility.
“Footprint needed to diversify its offerings as opportunities presented itself. And that’s exactly the reason for our partnership with Epson – that their existing customer base can diversify into labels,” Yeates said.
“There is a low barrier to entry in terms of skillset with the machine and as general commercial printers, Footprint is able to easily transition and diversify into labels. We’re hoping to schedule the install in the next month or so and are excited to see what they can do with the machine.”
