Super-interested to discover that CPI has installed the first MGI JETvarnish in the UK. And it’s the latest high-falutin’ JETvarnish 3D model, to boot. A few months back I wrote an article about developments in the inkjet spot UV coating space, and at the time I was scratching my head about why MGI didn’t have a customer here on the small island yet, when it has well over a hundred installs elsewhere in the world. The promise from MGI was that things were about to take off, with three UK customers poised to put the kit in. Well, now we know that CPI Colour is the first. It’s not a cheap bit of kit, at circa £250,000, so any potential purchaser would need to have either a ready-made market or a rock solid plan for gaining one. I can see how this digital spot coating facility should have appeal to CPI’s existing customer base, be that book publishers or corporate print clients. Judging by the reaction to the samples on show at CPI’s launch event earlier this week, this ‘3D’ effect – whereby the profile of the varnish can be varied across the sheet – has appeal. It’s the sort of tactile result that makes an immediate connection, and has a real wow factor. And because there’s none of the traditional makeready requirements or minimum economic run lengths of traditional spot coating it’s also ideal for things like test marketing and pitch documents. So, CPI has first mover advantage with this particular offering. The next interesting thing will be to see if MGI’s prediction of a ‘domino effect’ once machines start going in proves to be correct.