The B2 machine, which was installed around two months ago, was supplied by Friedheim International and cost £35,000. The kit is additional to the company’s plant list, which also includes two five-colour Sakurai B2 presses, two Konica Minolta digital printers and four Agfa flatbeds.

The Komfi Amiga 52 can laminate sheets ranging from 115-600gsm. The company specified the device with the additional Over Toner Foiling option that can be used to apply a film which creates special effects – such as glossy, metallic or colourful areas – on a printed sheet.

Inprint Litho had previously outsourced all of its laminating but, according to managing director Damien Sweeney, was starting to see more requests for this type of work.

“We were previously spending quite a lot on outsourcing laminating as well as foiling, so this investment is just bringing it all in-house. We will only outsource larger volume lamination work now.

“It’s a good quality machine, it doesn’t take up a big footprint and it’s quick and easy to use – it’s a huge offering for a very small outlay. It’s probably reduced our outsourcing cost by 50%, but more importantly it’s improved our time to delivery, so we can just turn jobs around much quicker.”

He added: “We do lots of short run digital and we’ve got a couple of internet shops, so the new machine has just made it a lot quicker and easier to get on-time deliveries.”

The 35-staff firm, which is on target to turn over £4m this year, is also set to take on a fourth unit at the Southampton industrial estate it is based on in April, taking its total space up to around 1,580sqm.

“We want to grow to £5m turnover in the next two years,” said Sweeney, who added the company regularly undertakes “campaign work” for clients, where it produces and collates all of the litho, digital and large-format print needed for a customer’s campaign and then packs it and sends it out to multiple locations as required.