Arriving in late October, the new cutsheet toner machine will replace a nine-year-old bizhub Press C1060 digital colour press at the company’s site on the outskirts of Bridgnorth town.
The new machine will immediately be put to work alongside the company’s other printer, an AccurioPress C3070 from Konica Minolta, boosting potential small-format print capacity by up to 50%, according to the company’s managing director, Richard Stilwell.
He told Printweek that growing demand for the business’ services made the investment a sensible decision, alongside the recent recruitment of a newly qualified graduate designer to bolster the five-strong team.
“Looking at our recovery from Covid, we felt that we needed to support the increase in business we’ve had over the past two or three years,” he explained.
“It was quite an old machine, so we needed to replace it and invest for the future. The new machine has a guarantee for the next five years or so, and we’re covered for whatever eventuality.”
The new hire has been a hit, too: “They’ve been absolutely super, they’re doing really well.
“We’re introducing them to the real world of printing – it’s not a criticism of the universities, but the actual commercial world demands that you can’t sit in front of a computer screen for hours for a single birthday card. But they’re doing really very well, and picking things up nicely.”
Bridgnorth’s past few years have been a steady story of growth after a tough pandemic.
The company had been based in the centre of Bridgnorth with a retail outlet, operating there for around a decade, but during the pandemic the position became untenable.
“The retail side of things was pretty dire, to say the least,” said Stilwell.
“We took the decision to move out of the town centre, forget about retail, which was anything from print cartridges to associated stationery, and concentrate on print.
“Certainly the year or two after Covid was a strain, but now we’re fully recovered, and a large part of that has to do with our investment in things like wide-format printing.”
Bridgnorth Printing Services has an HP Latex 310 1.4m wide-format printer alongside an older plotter-printer – the Latex in particular has helped the company double its wide-format turnover since the pandemic.
“It also enables us to bring a few things in-house, as well,” Stilwell said.
“When things get really busy, the new machines are cheaper to run, so it means that we can look at longer runs that we can do in-house rather than using a trade printer.
“The Latex we find to be of exceptional quality, and ticks a lot of environmental boxes as well.”
