The Leicester firm bought a five-colour Aquaflex, an eight-colour MPS EF300 and a Shuttleworth MIS.

"The MPS has auto-registration, servo-driven printheads and second-to-none quality," said managing director Stuart Kellock.

"Makeready is 25 minutes instead of two hours. We use up to 100m of material in set-up, which we aim to reduce to save up to 20,000 a year."

His MIS-evaluated business helped improve under-performing product lines.

Kellocks firm makes plain and printed self-adhesive labels and swing tickets. The machinery could add 2m to the firms 3m turnover in 18 months, he said.

"We work on a two-day turnaround instead of seven and so you need capacity in your system."

Label Apeel wanted to gain a British food hygiene accreditation, which prompted the move to new presses.