The laminator, which cost nearly £140,000, was installed at the end of September.

Saxon general manager Andy Smith said: “Being able to produce any film-laminating requirements in-house gives us control over another process in the chain, in addition to sheet-to-sheet laminating, die-cutting and gluing.

“Paperplast has a great name in this market and we wanted great build quality and reliability so it was the obvious choice. This reduces our lead times and reduces our costs. It also gives us the opportunity to trial and experiment with new films and substrates to add to our expanding portfolio.”

The laminator works by using high heats to meld the film, which is ordinarily between 22 and 27 microns in thickness, and substrate together.

Film lamination can be done in conjunction with a number of finishing techniques, including foiling, die-cutting, scoring, embossing and debossing.

Last month, Lowestoft, Suffolk-based Saxon Packaging, which was established in 1986, was acquired by Smurfit Kappa UK, for an undisclosed sum.

Last year, it brought laminating in-house with the purchase of a Lamina Blackline 1620. Both the Lamina and the Paperplast have made up part of a wider £1.5m 18-month investment programme.

It also runs a Bobst Vision-160 die-cutter, a Martin 718 Casemaker, a Kirby 3.2m-printer-slotter, a Jagenberg Diana 132 high-speed gluer and a Solema division assembler.

With 54 staff and sales of £6.8m, Saxon mainly produces work for the B2B market, but recently it has been producing more work for the drinks market, with a heavier focus on litho-printed packaging and trade laminating.

“Sales remain strong on the back of our best year and we look on target for our predictions this year with the added benefit of having significant capacity moving forward following our recent investments,” added Smith.