Signing for the machine at last week’s Ipex trade show in Birmingham, the Hertfordshire-based firm will take delivery of the machine into its 280sqm Ware premises around Christmas time, after a 24sqm storage extension has been added. It will join a Ricoh Pro C6100 along with a range of finishing equipment at the eight-staff firm.

Managing director Martin Crowson said: “We were 50/50 before Ipex. We’d got some costs from a rival manufacturer and we went to Ipex to view that machine. We were impressed with both but we decided to go with Ricoh as it has some extra bits and the extra toner for white and spot UV.

“Obviously, we’re a CD printing company, but we already have a colour machine for jewel cases and some of those customers are coming to us and saying, ‘Do our newsletter, booklet, brochures’, so with this extra quality we can offer more spot UV, business cards, and just generally more. Quality and speed has always been good, we had a Ricoh before so know what we are getting in a sense.

“I would like to think that by the end of next year if we can get our marketing right and get the campaigns out there I’m hoping to double in size.”

The 90ppm C7100 prints on stock up to 360gsm with a top resolution of 1,200x4,800dpi, and can also handle textured grades. Crowson added that he would consider adding other spot colours to the machine, either pink or luminous green. 

£800,000-turnover Direct CDs is now in the market for a new plotter cutter, having picked up an ArtisJet direct-to-substrate printer around three months ago. It has two sub-brands, Custom Card, launched seven years ago, and PCL Media around a decade ago.