Elanders makes digital investment

Elanders Packaging specializes in printing luxury packaging and labels for the drinks industry, with a strong heritage in Scottish whisky through its acquisition of McNaughtans the Printers in 2013.

With the move to Bellshill, the company trebled its footprint in Scotland and added a host of new equipment, including specialist digital print and high-quality finishing machinery. New equipment in Bellshill will include HP Indigo digital press technology with an AB Graphic Digicon finishing unit to enable printing, die-cutting, embossing and the preparation of pressure-sensitive labels for premium drinks brands, ready for self-adhesion at bottling plants. It said this investment enables spirit manufacturers to introduce personalization for gifting or limited edition expressions. This unit will run alongside Elanders’ existing wet labeling equipment. To complement the digital print equipment, Elanders has also invested in a priming unit, which treats any substrate and prepares this for digital printing – enabling a wider range of materials to be used, so achieving the same quality as litho printing, the printer said.

These new tools will sit alongside its existing machinery, further enhancing the company’s print for packaging capabilities available to customers.

Elanders will also be able to offer its clients in-house finishing services through a new gluing line, and B1 hot foiling, die-cutting and embossing equipment.

Chris Hewitt, managing director of Elanders UK, said: ‘Elanders always aims to be one step ahead when it comes to innovation within the packaging and print sectors meaning we are able to offer our customers the very best solutions to meet their individual needs. Our new site in Bellshill is more than treble the size of our previous site in Cumbernauld meaning we can expand our offering and purchase new cutting-edge machinery to sit alongside our existing machinery, offering our customers more choice.’