Digital printing of newspapers may have failed (at least temporarily) in the UK, but across the Channel a Parisian print plant has installed a new Screen TruepressJet 520NX as it updates its production platform.
The Eucles Daily Print operation in the north of Paris was set up in 2012 and has operated twin Kodak Versamark VL420 lines, with a pair of Hunkeler finishing lines. These were capable of 125m/min at a 600x300dpi resolution. Now president of Eucles Daily Brice Pouzoulet says: “We needed to update our printing capabilities and after searching the market found that the TruepressJet 520NX had the best balance of speed, quality, reliability and subsequent final cost per print.”
It had three criteria to judge options against: output quality and pressure reliability; speed and thirdly, workflow. The TPJ520NX runs at 225 m/min while the Equios workflow can batch up to 20 newspaper on a reel of newsprint.
The plant produces 80 international titles from 50 countries, sent digitally each night to the plant. These are distributed each morning by 6.30 am to embassies, hotels, airlines and other newspaper outlets across Paris. Print runs rarely exceed 2,000 per title making inkjet printing the only practical way to operate.
The output has included editions of The Guardian, the Daily Telegraph, The Times, Financial Times, Wall Street Journal and Daily Mail for distribution to an expat community in the French capital.
During the day the same equipment is used to produce highly personalised newspaper style products for agencies, weddings and other celebrations, schools and local communities. These can be stitched and trimmed on a Hohner HHS stitching line for more of a magazine style product in broadsheet or tabloid format.
The concept and market that Eucles serves overlaps exactly with that targeted by UK company Stroma which closed at the end of last year. That only ran a single press line, limiting production capacity. Eucles also has the benefit of in 2019 becoming part of the Riccobono group and thus one of eight plants within the newspaper print group.
