The purchase, which was supported by a Welsh Assembly investment grant, marks Mowatt's first move to modernise the Porthmadog printer.

Mowatt said that after assessing the production processes, he quickly identified platemaking as a bottleneck.

In addition to buying the new platesetter, Mowatt decided to switch to chemistry-free processing in order to further boost efficiencies.

He said: "Running it with Saphira Chem-Free plates will reduce many man-hours spent processing. It improves the efficiency and quality."