Supplied by finishing equipment vendor Ashgrove Trading, the circa £17,000 device was installed last month and has replaced a manual-feed laminator, which has been part exchanged.

The company went to view the Neptune at D&K agent Encore Machinery prior to making its purchase and then saw the machine in action at the University of Southampton, which also runs one.

Elephant said the Neptune’s automatic feed will enable it to work faster and that the foiling attachment will enhance the work produced on its HP Indigo 5000 and Xerox Colour J75 printers.

The company will use the machine to help it move into more specialised print products, including short run paper-over-board binders and perfect bound books.

“This machine is a whole lot faster, certainly on the sealing side, which is fantastic – it’s very well constructed,” said Elephant managing director Jason Gadd.

“But it’s the foiling that we were moreso interested in. We’ve been doing some testing and trialling on that over the last few weeks and it’s looking quite good.”

Five-staff Elephant Print & Display was established in 2002 and operates from three connected units in Barcombe, near Lewes. Turning over just over £500,000, it serves clients including local authorities and design agencies as well as the trade.

Also running an Epson SureColor and an HP DesignJet, Elephant’s work is produced climate neutrally through German-based ClimatePartner and the business is powered by 600 250 watt solar panels at the back of its premises.