The Barnet, London-based printer invested around £90,000 in the press, which was installed last month.

It follows and supplements the firm's investment two years ago in a Ricoh Pro C651, which has helped turnover for the digital side of the business grow by 400%. Digital now makes up 40% of the business.

The C901 will enable the company to expand into new markets, such as specialist packaging and on-demand book printing, and meet its customer demand for faster turnaround times on a wider variety of paper and board.

Owner David Purton said: “Our work is moving more and more away from litho due to the shorter print runs. We often get requests for a couple of hundred boxes and we can produce that for a customer much more cheaply digitally than using litho.”

The C901, which handles stocks up to 300gsm in duplex mode, prints at up to 90 A4 ppm and integrates full colour scanning, copying and document storage to meet image capture and print-on-demand requirements. It features oil-free imaging technology to produce output with "near-offset" quality.

“We had a brief look at alternatives from Xerox and Konica Minolta but we were happy with Ricoh and its services. We’ve already found the C901 to be fast and reliable,” said Purton.

The firm, which has four staff and a turnover of around £300,000, produces items including stationery, business cards, brochures, flyers and folders for clients including The National Trust, Tottenham Hotspur F.C. and Barnet College.