Glossop Cartons, a printed packaging specialist, has been announced as the first UK based customer to invest in Fujifilm’s Acuity LED 1600 UV LED inkjet printer.  The solution achieves a best-in-class combination of 20m2 per hour productivity and excellent image quality and supports substrates up to 1,610mm in width.  It is designed to print on wide-format roll media, and rigid sheet substrates up to 13mm thick.

Established 30 years ago, Glossop Cartons is an SME with a solid reputation in quality litho printed cartons, wallets, blister cards, skin pack cards and packaging for the promotional, cosmetics, car accessories and luxury food business areas.  Jacky Sidebottom, director at Glossop Cartons, explains, “We work with brand owners who in turn supply large high street retailers who demand accurate printed samples of their end products. We have to submit high quality prototypes to ensure that what they see is truly what they will get.”

She continues, “Producing prototypes pre-press is both expensive and time consuming due to the different production steps involved, so when we came across Fujifilm’s Acuity LED 1600 at drupa, we immediately recognised that it would allow us to become more competitive, and enhance our service level to our clients. We had been looking at similar devices for a while and we were impressed by the quality and value for money of the Acuity LED 1600. Those features struck us as unique selling points.”

The printer features six ink colours plus white and clear ink as standard and can apply these in a single pass to produce a premium high gloss finish with a much higher efficiency than a conventional printer (where coloured and clear inks are applied in separate passes). The Acuity LED 1600 is ideal for many large format applications such as posters, in-store POP and retail displays, as well as packaging.

“There is an increasing demand for short run and bespoke packaging, and digital technology perfectly suits this requirement. Fujifilm’s Acuity LED 1600 fills a gap in the market through its ability to produce outstanding prototypes in an effective way. Thanks to the Acuity LED 1600 we can now print, and subsequently cut out, a diverse range of substrates quickly and efficiently, and also create packaging solutions distinguished by special varnishing effects. The use of this technology improves our turnaround time and removes the traditional costs of litho print and die-cutting, both of which are costly for short proof print runs,” adds Jacky.  “Fujifilm’s Acuity LED 1600 has enabled us to take our first steps into digital packaging and smoothly integrate it within our conventional production environment.”

Together with the performance of the Acuity LED 1600, Glossop Cartons is also pleased with the level of service offered by Fujifilm. Jacky concludes, “We’d already been working with Fujifilm in the pre-press area and have always found them to be a reliable supplier. All our contacts offer valuable consultancy and the company is a hassle-free and supportive partner.”

Graham Leeson, marketing communications manager Graphic Systems FUJIFILM Europe, comments, “The Acuity LED 1600 is a wide-format device which boasts unique features and raises the bar in terms of application versatility for this type of device. We are happy that print service providers such as Glossop Cartons acknowledge its value in the packaging environment and are confident that this installation is just the beginning of a successful path in this area for Fujifilm.”