Esko marks successful entry in the Baltic Region

Esko, the market leader in packaging pre-production solutions and world leader in digital imaging of flexo plates, is announcing two successful installations in the Baltic Region. Impaks (Latvia) and KO Repro (Estonia), two leading Baltic print and repro companies, have implemented the CDI Spark from Esko's line of Cyrel Digital Imagers.

Esko's strategic effort was launched earlier this year with the appointment of Maris Petersons as the new account manager for Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania. Petersons' objective is to leverage Esko’s brand awareness and to increase its leading position in the Baltic countries. Petersons belongs to the Nordic and Baltic sales organization managed by Robert Stake.

Esko as a quality brand

Maris Petersons contributes strong expertise from his previous position as sales manager at MAN Roland in Latvia, during which time he worked closely with Esko. ‘From my own experience as a distributor, I know Esko to be a reliable and professional partner and a global market leader with innovative solutions for the packaging industry. I am very pleased to be working with Esko to tap into the dynamic growth opportunities in the Baltic region. It will be a real challenge, but the motivation is there!’ stated Petersons.

Increasing Esko’s brand awareness is one of Maris Petersons' first objectives: ‘I want every printer in the Baltic Countries to know about Esko and to recognize it as a quality label. My main focus is on the packaging industry and companies using flexo: printers, designers and trade shops. CAD and CAM users are a secondary target group.’ Petersons' mission is to create market awareness that Esko's solutions turn the entire packaging supply chain – from brand owner to retailer – into a straightforward collaborative process, boosting consistent quality while reducing time to market and costs.  

Challenges and opportunities

‘The dedicated focus on the Baltic region is a strategic decision that was taken due to many factors that shows increasing activity in the industrial development in this region. It is also important to understand the potential growth of the market which is covered by companies within Baltic region,’ said Esko sales manager for Nordic and Baltic Robert Stake.

The region shows clear and promising signs of economic growth and the print and packaging industries are among the ones to benefit from an improved investment environment. ‘Trade and commerce between Eastern and Western Europe is progressing well and there are strong incentives for doing business in the Baltic States,’ explained Petersons. ‘Printers will directly benefit from an expanding economy and Esko has the solutions that will enable them to gain a competitive edge.’

First success booked in Latvia

Impaks, located in Riga, was the first printer in Latvia to install CDI. Maris Petersons has known Impaks for years and watched the company grow by strategically adopting new technology. ‘Impaks specializes in a niche market and they realize their continuous growth by investing in the newest technologies. They became interested in the Esko CDI Spark 2530 when problems occurred in terms of prepress and quality,’ explained Petersons. ‘Investing in the Spark CDI has solved daily prepress problems and also increased Impaks’ know-how. Today Impaks doesn’t need to outsource anything and handles prepress, print and finishing in-house.’ 

Impaks implemented the CDI Spark 2530 with an ink-mixing station and quality control, along with FlexRIP and DeskPack 3.0, Flexo tools for Adobe Photoshop and plug-ins for Adobe Illustrator CS.

Igor Kokin, managing director at Impaks, commented: ‘Esko’s solution is very competitive, both in terms of price and quality. Another important advantage was the excellent training that was provided to our employees.’ Impaks has experienced improved quality and more efficiency. ‘We have considerably reduced the time we need for the prepress process and the plug-ins for Photoshop are amazingly practical. Best of all, our new CDI is delivering excellent printing quality,’ stated Kokin. 

Esko pioneer in Estonia

In Estonia, Tallinn-based KO Repro is pioneering the way with Esko’s flexo technology. With the installation of the CDI Spark 4835, KO Repro is the first repro-house to adopt flexo technology in Estonia. According to Maris Petersons, KO Repro has defined itself with a future-oriented reputation: KO Repro observed that film and CtP were slowly shifting from repro to print and that declines in revenue would be inevitable. Tarmo Orasme, the managing director of KO Repro, decided to pro-actively switch to the production of flexo plates, and that led him to choose Esko.

‘We researched different systems and the biggest problem in Estonia is the total lack of local technical support,’ said Tarmo Orasme. ‘That is why we chose the manufacturer with the most experience in this field and a product that had already proven itself: the Esko CDI Spark 4835 and the CyrelFast system.’ The CDI Spark 4835 images digital flexo plates up to 48’ x 35’ (1200 x 900 mm) at speed options ranging from 1.5 to 4.0 m˜/hr. A high-speed, high-reliability fiber laser with multi-beam optics delivers complete accuracy. It includes an integrated plate loading table with the EasyClamp II drum.

‘We generate excellent quality plates in a very short time and the whole process is chemistry free and environmentally friendly. The CDI Spark 4835's compact size doesn't require a separate dark room and the printer is so small, we can even put it in our office area,’ concluded Tarmo Orasme.