Labmak secures new business thanks to Durst Tau RSC investment

The Label Makers (Labmak) has invested in the Durst Tau RSC platform and software to expand into high-end markets and successfully turned a major food brand prospect into one of its biggest accounts.

Label produces by The Label Marker with its new Durst Tau RSC press

Labmak became the beta test site for the RSC platform three years ago, working in partnership with Durst. It currently has two Durst Tau 330 RSC single-pass UV inkjet presses, with industrial scale production and speeds up to 80m/min.

‘It’s unbelievable photographic quality,’ said David Webster, managing director at Labmak. ‘The print quality meant that we could look for more sophisticated work, particularly as we found it far easier to hit everybody’s brand color. As one example, we were approached by a prospective customer who asked if we could reproduce its fluorescent green logo. Thanks to the fantastic quality from the RSC green ink, we were able to do this and won the new contract. Now that food brand is now one of biggest customers.’

Recently Labmak won two major awards for a complicated illustrated label embellished and printed onto bottles of spiced and dark rum for Manchester-based brand Diablesse, the first for Label of The Year at the UK Packaging Awards and the second for ‘Special Effect in Labels and Packaging’ in the Digital Printer Awards.

‘The depth and vibrancy of the inks printed on the Durst Tau 330 RSC was crucial and I can’t think we’d have ever won without it. Who would ever have thought we’d be printing rum labels digitally? What more can I say? Customer requirements are now changing constantly. In this market label delivery dates now typically get changed hourly, not even daily, so we have to have flexibility of printing on either machine or even transferring work from flexo.

‘Durst Workflow Label software enables us to manipulate files press side, so jobs can be tweaked immediately by press operators without sending the file back to the studio, which could easily take up to 20 minutes. Any changes are now done in five minutes – it’s a major time-saver. And it’s a game changer.

‘The future of label printing is here, and it’s digital inkjet production. We now have supermarket chains requesting that the jobs be printed inkjet rather than flexo because of the vibrancy of the colors, the screen effect of the inks and the perfect print registration. Our Tau RSC investments give us the opportunity to take on more clients and better service our existing customers. Previously we were mainly using the Durst Tau presses for the personal care markets. Now, with the new capabilities, we are producing everything from food labels through to high quality wines and spirits,’ concluded Webster.