Emmedue installs Mark Andy Digital Pro 3

Founded in 1984, Emmedue specializes in label printing for various customers in industries as diverse as automotive, food, and logistics. Digital Pro 3 is the company’s first digital press devoted to roll-fed printing. It is expected to help with market expansion and production diversification to the beverage and wine labeling sectors.

‘Digital printing is an integral and essential part of every label converter’s plan to grow and develop its business,’ commented Maurizio Maffioli, owner of Emmedue. ‘It improves customer service, especially on shorter run jobs that need variable text and graphics. We see Digital Pro 3 as the perfect solution for our current and future needs.’

The newly installed machine offers in-line combined flexo and digital print units as well as a die-cutting station. It features printing speeds of up to 23 m/min in full CMYK mode, making it suitable for efficient production of small and medium runs printed on different substrates without pre-treatment. Its fully modular concept enables the company to expand the press in the future to tailor its services to the customers’ demands.

‘I have followed Mark Andy’s activities on social media, especially LinkedIn, and watched presentation videos of its equipment on YouTube shown to us by FDM, its Italian dealer, which was instrumental in guiding us through this key investment,’ added Maffioli. ‘We already knew that Mark Andy was a longtime supplier to the label industry and that its presses have a great reputation for reliability.’

According to Maffioli, the company was looking for a digital technology to fit its current printing department and create new market opportunities. It would also need to help the existing production lines by increasing the added value element to meet customers’ expectations on the increasing number of shorter runs. Before the Digital Pro arrived, this work was printed using the traditional method, which was often inefficient for Emmedue.

'We chose a Digital Pro because it incorporates the benefits and strengths we expect from digital technology. Print quality is always a top priority for us, but we also needed repeatability, variability, and speed of delivery. The in-line flexo unit allows us to apply varnish or cold foil in one pass, and the semi-rotary die-cutter allows us to use many existing dies. That’s why the Digital Pro 3 matches our expectations perfectly,' said Maffioli.

‘We realize how important digital technology is for the development of self-adhesive labels in today’s market, and knowing of Mark Andy’s long experience and expertise in this sector, we believe the Digital Pro 3 is the perfect machine for printing with in-line finishing both for start-up businesses and existing label converters that need to reduce the time and cost of offline finishing of their digitally printed labels,’ said Enrico Firenze, sales manager at FDM.

Digital Pro prints directly from PDF files with a 1200 DPI resolution and is equipped with an easy-to-use RIP. The press handles many substrates without pre-treatment, offering significant time and money savings.

‘There are eco-friendly and special papers used for wine labels that are suitable for offset printing but give poor results when flexo printed,’ said Maffioli. ‘Now we can offer shorter delivery times, on a wider range of labels in different runs, without any compromise in quality and repeatability. We can also add value in pre-press, making pre-production samples to evaluate the impact of the final packaging for real, not just as a video. This will allow us to modify graphics or size if necessary.’

The company plans to expand its e-commerce business further by adding a dedicated B2B service for the production and delivery of labels to small and very small customers, like micro-breweries and artisanal food suppliers, which need quality products at low production volumes.

Speaking for Mark Andy, regional sales manager Josep Balcells commented: ‘The Digital Pro series was introduced at Labelexpo Europe in 2019 and immediately attracted interest from the market. We are very pleased with its growing popularity on a global scale, including this first installation in Italy. Emmedue highlights how important a Digital Pro can be for a well-established label printer, offering further product development and growth. Emmedue is the perfect example of a printer that has carefully observed a market, identified the changes and responded to them with the most appropriate investment. Mark Andy is very proud to be a partner in this process.’