Midland Regional Printers has ordered a Sanwa 1060 SCA Axia die cutting and blanking platen.
The additional capacity will be installed at MRP’s Nottingham factory later this year. It will sit alongside an existing Sanwa platen which lacks the automatic blanking feature and handle both solid board and corrugated.
The investment is needed to cope with increasing demand for cardboard packaging, with from customers wanting to repatriate work from Asia and from companies wanting to switch from plastics to more easily recyclable cardboard packaging.
Sales director Matt Seaford says that the difference in the cost from printing in Asia has shrunk when freight costs are taken into account. “It means that for packaging there is no longer a huge saving especially for lower quantities,” he says. “Then there are questions about quality, the long lead times and waste associated with printing overseas.”
Marketing director Catherine Tew says: “This latest investment marks a significant moment in terms of growth for Midland Regional Printers. We have been tirelessly working with brands to redesign their plastic packaging into cardboard due to the consumer appetite to reduce single use plastics.”
The company produces packaging alongside general print having migrated from pure commercial printing into cartons and labels over the last decade. This has led to investment in a six-colour Heidelberg XL106 and Easymatrix in 2017, a Lamina litho to corrugated laminator in 2019 and MarkAndy Digital Pro label press which was installed in 2020.
Now as demand for environmentally friendly packaging increases comes the latest investment which will offer greater flexibility and faster turnaround for existing and new clients. The blanking feature for removing unwanted board and leaving stacked carton blanks will be crucial to meeting fast turnaround requirements.
“People are asking us to redesign their plastic packaging to make it from card. It seems to be a general question that we are getting because people do not want to use plastic and most of the time we can accommodate this, even for very heavy products,” says Seaford.
The company has adequate press capacity, though may look at additional carton folder gluer, not because it lacks capacity, says Seaford, but to be able to expand the range of carton types that MRP can offer.
