The recent spend comes off the back of the installation of a five-colour Heidelberg Speedmaster XL 105 late last year. The press, its maiden B1 machine, kick-started the need for the Agfa platesetter, which will image B1 plates for the company.

According to pre-press manager Darren Hall, the company recently completed a 200,000-run job with the Avalon, which runs chemistry-free and outputs Azura TS plates.

Hall said the new investment had allowed the company to cut chemical waste by 90%.

"Prior to Azura, we had to dispose of hundreds of litres of waste developer and spent three or four hours cleaning a processor each month, but now maintenance is minutes rather than hours," he said.

The new press and platesetter combination has also significantly boosted productivity at the company, which is aiming to grow turnover to £7m by the end of 2010. Its turnover in 2008 was £4.3m.

Jude Whitford, commercial director at Pepper, said: "The move to B1 enabled us to grow the business substantially so the higher productivity of the Avalon N8-50 with Azura TS was essential. We can now produce four-colour set in eight minutes to feed the Heidelberg XL105."