The company, which has 40 permanent staff and is based in Washington in Tyne and Wear, has bought a Xerox DocuPrint 850 system, which comprises two simplex machines running together as a duplex.

NEMC managing director Heather Ramshaw told printweek.com the purchase was due to expansion and the company hoped to increase its work with blue-chip clients in industries such as travel, finance and the public sector.

"We've invested half a million in new equipment and the reason for doing that is to complement the other parts of the business," Ramshaw said.

"We're absolutely delighted with it – the continuous feed gives us the opportunity to handle much higher print runs and move into new markets."

Ramshaw said the Xerox 850 and an associated MB52 folding machine, which takes feeds direct from the continuous printer, were purchased together from Continual, a Xerox company.

The Xerox 850 continuous-feed system can handle print runs in excess of four million A4 images or 610,000m per week.

She added that NEMC was in the process of making a further substantial investment before the end of the year.