Abbey Labels makes move into digital

The company has previously operated UV flexo presses, and has spent a lengthy time researching its move into digital. Having narrowed down the equipment choice, visits were made to both Labelexpo and Drupa 2012 to finalize the decision.

Tom Allum (pictured, top), chairman of Abbey Labels, said: ‘We had been examining the potential for digital and the equipment available for some two or three years. Question marks about speed of digital devices, print quality, and the space required to set up a digital operation were constantly on our minds.

‘The latest range of equipment from Xeikon did seem to solve our speed queries, and the dramatic improvements in print quality in recent years ticked all of the boxes in that area of concern. What really made up our minds in favour of the Xeikon product though was the lack of click charge, which simply made costing and quoting for jobs a lot easier, and the fact that the Xeikon people seemed to speak our language.’

The addition of a digital press has enabled the company to create new business opportunities and carry out new work. ‘I would say that 90 percent of the work is new work – some from existing customers, but most of it from new customers, said Allum.

‘The new work is being mainly generated from our new updated website. The ability to produce short runs or multiple sorts of color labels without the associated cost of plates has allowed the company to compete for many orders that were just out of reach with flexo pricing.’

Local food producers are one such market to Abbey Labels said has benefitted from digital printing. Abbey Labels is British Retail Consortium-registered for food production work, and Allum said: ‘This has been a tremendous help to us in generating business from the food sector. Local food producers have been especially keen to use our services: they don’t need millions of labels in most cases – more often they might need a few hundred labels of several different sorts. This makes them ideal customers for digital label printing.’

The Xeikon 3300 is supported by an AB Graphics Digicon 2 converting line. ‘It is a great addition to the Xeikon. The new finishing line has allowed us to provide a wide range of embellishment options such as lamination, foiling, varnishes, and spot colours to the labels.  Due to the special die-cutting system on the Digicon we can use our existing stock of over 5,000 cutters which we have stored for our flexo work. This has made us very flexible for both new and existing customers.’

Allum concluded: ‘The Xeikon has delivered in all of the areas that we expected, but the print quality has certainly surpassed our expectations. On the technical side, the machine has proved more reliable than we were expecting as well.

‘We have also been very pleasantly surprised by the excellent back-up provided by Xeikon. They understand this market and its needs extremely well.’