Benson brings coating plate production in-house

Benson Group has installed coating plate production equipment from Dantex at its Gateshead food packaging factory.

 

The Team Valley site had previously used a mix of its own hand-prepared cut-out blankets and plates provided by an external supplier.

 

Equipment installed by Dantex at Benson Gateshead includes a 900F in-line flexo plate processor, A1 Plus exposure unit, bag and ceramic filtration systems, and a dry film system – comprising an Epson 9890 large format inkjet printer and specialist software.

 

Plates are used on the dedicated coating units of the Gateshead plant’s four Komori B1-format litho presses, which include the UK’s first Lithrone SX40 press.

 

Using an Aquaflex 900F plate processor, plates are originated by producing a negative image on a standard Epson inkjet device, which is driven by specialist RIP software. The negative is exposed onto the Flexo NVO 114 water-wash coating plate, Aquaflex Varnica, via a regular exposure frame before being processed through the Aquaflex 900F unit.

 

A dry, ready to run plate can be created in approximately 40 minutes using this system. Older solvent-based plate production systems could take over two hours in the drying process alone for one plate.

 

Lee Appleby, operations manager for Benson in the north-east, said: ‘This system gives us a tremendous advantage in terms of the time it takes to create a plate for the coating unit. Using an outside supplier it would not be uncommon to have a 24-hour turnaround – that’s not too bad if you have sufficient advance warning of the need to create a new plate, but that is often not the case.

 

‘With our customers having ever more demanding delivery schedules it is a significant benefit to have control over the production of this part of the process. The plates produced are also highly durable – we have already had one plate running in excess of one million impressions – and produce excellent, consistent quality on the run.

 

‘The installation will allow us to cater for the more exacting coating demands from customers and our own Benson Group design department. The UK’s major supermarkets are seeking ever more attractive and striking pack designs to tempt their customers to pick goods from the shelf. Coatings are playing an important role in that process, with a variety of textures being asked for.’

 

The new plate production system offers a range of environmentally friendly features. ‘Whilst the water-based plate processing takes the headlines, the significantly shorter drying time is also a major plus in environmental terms, with far less power being consumed. On-site production also reduces the amount of “driving miles” associated with each individual plate,’ added Appleby.

 

Read more about plates and platemaking here