The South Wales company, which has a strong presence in carton production, completed the certification scheme to broaden its reach into wider consumer packaging work.

As a result of attaining the ISO 12647-2 standard, the business has already won new contracts from clients in the retail packaging space and is providing print charts and output data for existing key customers every six weeks.

According to Geraint Evans, print manager of Shorewood Packaging (Ebbw Vale), the print colour management project opened the company's eyes to some of its previous equipment shortcomings.

During the scheme, Shorewood upgraded its five-colour Heidelberg CD 74 and SM 74 presses as well as its Image Control spectrophotometer.

Evans said: "Now both our SM 74-5+L and our CD 74-5+L are running to the standard and it has given us and our customers the greatest confidence in our colour.

"This is also important to us as part of a global group handling many leading international brands."

Last year, Hampton Printing became the first UK print company to achieve the ISO 12647-2 colour control standard through Heidelberg. According to Hampton Printing managing director Chris Cooper, the certification, which was launched earlier this year, enables printers to prove their quality.