Mark Kerridge, managing director of the £93m-turnover group, said: "Two years ago we bought the XL 105 because we wanted to look at new technology and use it in anger.

"It has proved very successful, running most commonly at 18,000sph, with an impressive makeready time and taking the quality benchmark to a new and reliably good level."

The press will be installed at Benson's Bardon headquarters in Leicestershire, which outputs 750m cartons a year for the food sector

The installation marks a continuation of the group's investment strategy, totalling £25m on new plant and equipment since 2000, and comes on the back of "relatively good demand" in the carton sector.

Kerridge said: "People are eating in more and the pharmaceutical sector is still retaining good volumes. We have noticed some change in product mix with a move from luxury to standard and economy products.

"But brand is still important and four process colours plus two specials is still a well-used combination. There has been a lot of rebranding and repositioning for greater shelf appeal as a result of the downturn."

The new press, which the packaging company said was chosen as a direct result of the performance of the first press, will run alcohol-free and has been fitted with AxisControl spectrophotometry.

Kerridge said: "We like the ease and speed of use of AxisControl. It is very suitable to our production requirements. The key issue is that we have accurate colour measurement as we work to the ISO 12647-2 standard."