According to production director Lorraine Berwick, the company had been pigeon-holed by its suppliers for either 5,000 run work and above or less than 1,000, based on having two litho presses and two digital machines.

She said: "As a result, we were losing out on the short- to medium-run work, which is one of the fastest-growing volume bands in the business.

"It was also time to review our digital capabilities. When we first invested in digital, we anticipated we would be doing a lot of personalisation, but in reality that didn’t happen.

"Instead, we have seen an increase in short-run full colour work for those presses, and their cost effectiveness tapped out in quantities way below what we could produce on our two-colour litho presses, leaving us with an awkward production gap."

Initially the company intended to add a third litho machine, but was held back by the cost of the press, associated platemaking and its footprint, opting instead for the 7,000sph 34DI.

Colchester Print Group is a £5m-turnover business, also comprising Breckland Print, which supports Moreton Hall with six-colour and 10-colour Komori presses for longer run work