The Mytchett, Surrey-based business is set to install both devices – each purchased directly from their respective manufacturers – in the coming weeks, with the Konica Minolta currently pencilled in for early February. Together, the two machines represent an investment of just under £50,000.

NPC Print CEO and founder Natalie Puttock established the business as a print management outfit around five years ago. As the company gradually got bigger, it started to invest in its own in-house production during the Covid pandemic.

The new Morgana machine is replacing a previous model, which is being part exchanged, while the Konica Minolta will be bought by the company on a hire purchase basis to replace a previous Konica Minolta device leased from a third-party.

“We’re upgrading to a better spec Morgana so we can do A6 booklets and A4 landscape, and it’s also got a square-back folder,” Puttock told Printweek.

She added: “We have been renting a lower grade Konica Minolta, and we’ve got a Ricoh Pro C5200 as well. We’re going to keep the Ricoh for the time being as a backup machine, but we’ve just decided that, as we’re getting busier and busier and demand is increasing, we need a higher spec, better quality machine.”

Puttock went down to Konica Minolta in Southampton to run some test sheets prior to purchase and said the machine’s quality “spoke volumes for solids and tints”.

With a turnover of around £500,000, NPC Print serves customers ranging from agencies, corporate clients, finance companies, and restaurants through to local businesses. It operates from 186sqm premises with warehousing facilities and offers a free of charge stockholding facility for its customers.

The three-staff business also runs a Canon imagePrograf Pro-4000s wide-format printer for exhibition banners and posters, as well as other finishing kit from Morgana, Intec, and Polar, to handle creasing, lamination, and cutting in-house.