Catapult Print invests in new machinery

Catapult Print, a labels specialist established six years ago, began 2025 with investment in new machinery. This investment will help the company continue scaling up after achieving a 60m USD turnover in 2024.

This past year, Catapult onboarded more than 80 new customers while maintaining a customer retention rate of 98 percent. It grew by 40 percent in a market that contracted by 20 percent in 2024. The company now aims to reach 70m USD by the end of 2025.

Catapult's new machinery includes a second Com 500 Coater machine, ordered from Ravenwood. This machine will enable Catapult to double capacity while maintaining rapid order fulfillment as it continues to grow its customer base and throughput. Aligned to Catapult’s Linerless+ proposition, which offers a choice of traditional or glue gap linerless labels, the new machine has been specified with glue gap technology to provide flexibility for both options.

The advanced Com 500 Coater enables the simultaneous application of pressure-sensitive adhesive and UV curable silicone lacquer, with a Nordson adhesive pre-melting and delivery system that allows for to up to 12 slot heads with screw adjustments for glue stripe widths. It can accommodate variable line widths from 3mm to 45mm, and slits and rewinds multiple lanes into finished reels, in a single pass. With a coating speed of up to 130 m/min, the new coater supports Catapult’s technology-led production efficiency, and silicone is cured instantly via the UV curing system.

The latest Com 500 Coater model ordered by Catapult further enhances efficiency with a new silicone wheel support air shaft to speed up changeovers and a new laser micrometer to allow for enhanced glue weight specifications.

Alongside the new coater, Catapult is investing in an additional rewind machine. Supplied by Ashe Converting Equipment, the new Opal turret slitter rewinder is Catapult’s fifth rewind machine, which, including its two coaters, gives the company a total of seven finishing units.

The new machine will complement an end-to-end system for Catapult’s 26in Nilpeter printing press, allowing the company to deliver at high speed and maximizing widths to maintain lead times and pricing.

These new machines follow equipment investment and innovation that saw Catapult become the first company in the US to install the Nilpeter 26in 9-color printing press with die station in 2024, enabling faster printing of pressure-sensitive labels, linerless labels and narrow-web films. The Nilpeter FA-26 machine had never been specified or built before, and Catapult worked collaboratively with Nilpeter to develop a machine that provides live production data in real time, which overcomes the potential human error of manual inputting, while delivering efficiency and accuracy benefits. 

All eight of Catapult’s Nilpeter FA-Line presses will be fully integrated with Nilpeter’s Digital Shadow technology, enabling the company to collect and analyze data to advance efficiency, customer service, quality and sustainability. Digital Shadow allows Catapult to monitor metrics such as machine uptime, energy consumption and waste reduction in real time. The machines will all be upgraded simultaneously, with Catapult and Nilpeter working collaboratively to take all eight presses offline in a meticulously planned and delivered operation.

The investment in equipment continues Catapult’s approach to harnessing the potential of technology and data to achieve a more efficient and quality-driven print process, providing cost and lead time benefits for customers. It builds on the company’s Crystal digital system, which generates live data on every job. This enables Catapult’s customers to access accurate reports every 1-3 hours, with real-time visibility on orders, stock holding and production.

Catapult’s continued investment and market-focused approach to giving customers what they want resulted in record months for the company during Q4 of 2024. In October, Catapult achieved a 25 percent increasein revenue as compared to October 2023, which was 5.8 percent up on the company’s previous best-ever month. Then, in November, the company broke its own records again.

Mark Cook, Catapult’s chairman and co-founder, said: 'Alongside our continued focus on delivering faster, better, and at a lower cost for our customers, we have invested in capacity, efficiency and systems to equip us for further growth in the year ahead. 

'Our aim is to provide the same exceptional service to every customer, whether they have been with us since day one, or joined us yesterday. I am confident that, with the investments we have made in machinery, technology, people and systems, we have kept pace with demand for our services and are continuing to innovate to provide the service our customers deserve and the transformation our industry needs.'