The company, which replaced an older two-colour Ryobi with the new press, had previously run any four-colour jobs through its two two-colour presses.

However, JR Press owner Geoff Fone said the market had swiftly moved to "colour with everything", meaning the company was having to run a growing percentage of four-colour work through its two-colour presses.

"The switch to a four-colour press wasn't a difficult business decision, it was just a case of when," said Fone. "Once we had decided on the move to new premises that helped to finalise the timing of the new press."

He added that the company had researched digital, DI and offset technology prior to making the decision to invest in its first four-colour litho press.

"DI was quickly dismissed as not competitive [and] digital was not flexible enough to replace offset, although we will continue to run digital equipment for a percentage of our ultra-fast turnaround short-run media," said Fone.

The company is now focusing its sales efforts on expanding its range of solid board packaging components, including short-run clamshell inserts, header cards, blister cards and lightweight paper.

According to Fone, the 13-staff company, which has its own full design, pre-press and digital department, is also having success in the market for "boutique" or "concept" packaging, such as lightweight paper wrappings. "

"We have printed everything from six-colours onto 34gsm greaseproof paper for a designer soap wrapping through to 550gsm board for backing boards," said Fone.

"These might be slightly outside of the range stock weight that is guaranteed by Ryobi, but our operators were still able to work with these materials and produce excellent results."

Press operators at JR Press cited the high levels of automation on the Ryobi 524GE press as key features of the machine, including the ultra-fast make-ready times, and the ink volume software for pre-setting of ink ducts.

The press is capable of a maximum printing speed of 11,000sph with a maximum substrate size of 520 x 375mm and stock thickness from 0.04mm to 0.5mm.

Plates for all presses at JR Press are polyester-based and produced on a DPX System as provided by Apex. Other production tools include Epson large format printing equipment, digital print equipment from Canon, as well as in-house finishing equipment from Morgana and Duplo.