The long-awaited and much-anticipated first beta installation of the Landa S10 B1-format Nanographic press will take place in July, at Israeli packaging specialist Graphica Bezalel, in what will be the offset printer’s first digital press.
It will use the S10 to produce folding cartons. Director Eyal Harpak described it as “the first technology to tempt us into the world of digital print”.
The firm prints for leading brands and brand owners, and lists Nestlé, Unilever, Marks & Spencer, Coca-Cola, Tesco and Asda among its customers.
Harpak praised the S10’s “incredible colour palette” and said the firm planned to use it to produce short runs to reduce customer inventories, as well as versioned and customised packaging, and special promotions.
Landa and Graphica Bezalel plan to hold a worldwide customer open house event during the second week of September. Landa chief executive Yishai Amir said: “We are thrilled that they have embraced the technological and business benefits of Nanography, and we look forward to pioneering print packaging together.”
Amir told PrintWeek the manufacturer was not concerned that its first beta customer would be entirely new to digital printing.
“Many of our customers will not have digital printing experience. Our presses are very much addressing the mainstream,” he stated. “We are not afraid of going to customers that already have digital solutions today, or who don’t have digital. Every customer in folding cartons is prospectively a Landa customer and that’s what we’re going after.”
Simultaneous to the announcement of the first beta site location, Landa Digital Printing confirmed that point-of-sale and instore signage specialist Imagine!, based in Minnesota, is scheduled to install its beta press in November, and will be the first firm in the US to receive a press.
And the first European beta installation is slated for December, at €300m (£256m) turnover Germany-headquartered packaging group Edelmann.
Technical director Oliver Sattel said the Landa S10 would “remove the previous barriers of minimum orders” and deliver benefits for both procurement departments and creative teams at the group’s customers. “We already have lots of interest for this new service, and are confident that Landa is the right partner and Nanography the only technology to deliver this capability,” he stated.
Amir, pictured below with Edelmann managing director Dierk Schroeder, added: “We feel extremely proud to have such an amazing beta customer line-up and we are going to gain a lot of experience. These are really, really exciting times – this is an amazing milestone. We are ready now.”
The new beta site line-up differs from that announced at Drupa last year, when the first beta customers were named as Imagine! in the US for point-of-sale print, Colordruck Baiersbronn in Germany for packaging, and Elanders for commercial printing.
“We decided to have the first beta customer close to home,” explained Landa chairman Benny Landa. “We know Graphica Bezalel very well, they deal internationally with major food and consumer brands and are a high-volume, high-quality packaging company, making them an ideal beta site.”
The beta installations are years behind the initial timeframe envisaged, due to Landa completely overhauling the design of the presses after first showing the technology at Drupa 2012.
"The amazing thing is customers have not lost patience with us," Landa added. "Nothing can head-on compete with what we have, so those able to wait have done so."
All the beta sites will receive the straight printing B1-format S10 press, which prints at 6,500sph. The high-speed version, which will be available as a field upgrade at some point in the future, will print at 13,000sph. There is not yet an official timescale for the perfecting S10P model, aimed at commercial printers.
