According to sales director Peter Ingham, the investment will help the Blackburn-based company meet increased demand for its die-cut products such as crash lock cartons and four corner trays.

The machine, to be delivered in July, is the company’s second 1.6m Bobst die-cutter, while ELB also recently installed a Bobst Expertfold speciality folder-gluer for the manufacture of crash lock and four corner boxes and trays.

Ingham said: "As we all know, the demand for shelf ready packaging is continuing to grow apace and that means we have more and more need for high quality die-cutting.

"In 2008 we installed a Bobst Vision die-cutter to give us the capacity we needed to keep up with the demand we then had. Since then, the shelf ready and short -run markets have continued to grow and now we need extra capacity once more."

"Apart from its speed and its accuracy of die-cutting, which we need for this market, the Vision-160 gives us very fast make ready times. That means we can turn jobs around very quickly – something that is vital in today’s market.

"On top of this, the tooling is compatible with our existing Bobst, which gives us more flexibility and the ability to rush jobs through if a customer is in trouble."