In the final of the show, aired yesterday (17 December), sweet firm owner Sarah Lynn was crowned joint winner of the show along with James White, who runs an IT recruitment company.
It marked the first time in the programme’s history that face of the show Lord Alan Sugar chose both finalists to be his business partners. He will now invest £250,000 into both Lynn and White’s companies.
As part of her final task, Lynn developed postal packs of personalised sweets for her confectionery brand Sweeteze, specifically sized to fit through a letterbox.
London-based Rapidity was chosen to produce the boxes, carrying out the job in June this year after being scouted for the task beforehand.
Rapidity managing director Paul Manning told PrintWeek: “The production company approached us looking for a central London printer and we obviously said yes. They came in and filmed on our premises and we advised and helped them to produce the packaging.
“Sarah had this idea for the postal pack so we worked with her to produce that and then we printed it and finished it in one afternoon.
“A lot of people come into us with similar enquiries – looking to do a start-up with something that’s personalised. Somebody said in the episode that personalisation is the ‘in thing’ at the moment, which it very much is. Whether [Sarah’s brand] is successful or not, that part of the market is growing.”
Rapidity produced around 20 boxes for the task on 350gsm Symbol Freelife Satin with a soft touch laminate.
They were printed on an HP Indigo 7600 then raise UV coated on a Canon Océ Arizona 480 XT and cad cut on an Esko Kongsberg XM44 robotic cutting table. Around four of Rapidity’s staff were involved in the job.
“While we knew they were coming in, we didn’t know what it was about beforehand – we weren’t allowed to know,” said Manning.
“It is very time limited. They’re under pressure from the producers to do it quickly so it doesn’t have as much thought as you think would go into it but what we managed to produce in an afternoon was pretty amazing.”
He added: “We’ve done bits and pieces for media companies before but this is the first time we’ve had filming like this happen on site. As well as Sarah and the production team we had [Sugar’s advisor] Claude Littner here and fellow candidate Andrew, who was helping her.
“We had to sign an NDA for until it went out on air so we’ve been under lock and key, everybody has had to bite their tongue for months.”
Manning said the staff loved it and it has been good exposure for the company.
“It’s nice to know that when they were looking for a comprehensive London digital printer, they found and came to us – we weren’t selling to them.”
Rapidity has just installed a raft of new kit including a Canon Océ Colorado, as part of a £1.75m large-format and digital reequip. It is in the process of replacing its two HP Indigo 7600s with Indigo 7900s, the first of which is going in this week.
The firm won Post-press Company of the Year at the PrintWeek Awards 2017 in October.
