Glasgow-based Agripa has been developing the eponymous product for the last few years in conjunction with Cestrian, and has recently launched Fleet Media, specifically targeting trucksides.

Previously, if you bought a fleet of trucks youd be stuck with the same livery and generic message for the next seven years, but now they can be used as a credible part of the marketing mix, said sales and marketing director Roseanne Grant.

All the print work is currently done through Cestrian, using three of its five Vutek 3300s. It has also built a bespoke cutting table to fit the various sized trucks to ensure that the finishing is exact.

Cestrian operations director Phillip Reynolds said: Weve done the trials with Agripa and its paid off. This new work has almost taken up our spare capacity and so our managing director [Paul Whitehurst] is looking around at new machines.

Due to the high levels of mesh being bought 30,000m2, or the area of six football fields, per national campaign the cost of the substrate is being driven right down.

Were told this is revolutionising the mesh printing industry so that it now costs about the same as paper, said Grant.

Tesco is its first key customer and it has struck a unique partnership where it sells the supermarkets fleet trucksides to other advertisers, such as Cadbury.

The firms currently produce 600 mesh panels every two weeks for the fleet, but that is due to rise to 1,000. At that point the digital printer will be near capacity and Agripa will source additional suppliers.

Story by Rachel Barnes