Acting as commercial and wide-format print supplier to both the £1.3bn group and a range of external clients, Henderson Print has expanded its wide-format capacity significantly with the Turkish wide-format press.

Joining three 3.2m Agfa Anapurna presses, and four Roland DG machines, the new Liyu has taken on a huge section of the firm’s 1.6m banner work since it was installed last summer by printing two rolls in tandem. Printing at up to 120sqm/hr, the machine has helped Henderson Print handle the group’s sharp peaks in demand from a busy promotion schedule.

Running banners, foamex boards, composite posters and more, the machine has proved its worth said Stephen Best, general manager of Henderson Print.

He told Printweek: “It’s been brilliant. It’s been keeping up very well, and we’re pleased with the quality.

“We were training for a couple of weeks and [the supplier, Liyu Ireland] was very good, and made sure we were satisfied everything was working. They were very responsive: we had one issue, and it was straight back up online.”

He added that the extra productivity had made the difference for handling the Henderson Group’s busy promotional schedule.

“We went for it because it has that dual roll capability,” Best said.

“You see our print outside all our stores and garages – we have promotional cycles, so every month there’s a new promotion. We were constantly having to put on extra hours to get material printed for certain dates. It’s basically freed up days off our production time on certain items.”

Henderson Print employs 27 at its Newtownabbey site.