Leading US packaging producer invests in another VSOP 520

Belmark Inc has installed a second Muller Martini VSOP press at its facility in Wisconsin, where it will manufacture a variety of printed packaging for the company’s clients in the dairy, snack food, durable goods and pet food markets.
 
The new five-color VSOP joins a seven-color at Belmark, because, according to Karl Schmidt, president and CEO: ‘We’ve been very happy with the performance of the one we already have, and that’s given us the confidence to purchase a second.’
 
The VSOP web offset press is designed for flexible packaging and folding carton production and uses simple and rapid size changes to great advantage. The plate and blanket cylinders are designed as sleeves, making the VSOP printing unit infinitely variable for all repeat lengths, and a complete job changeover takes only a few minutes.
 
Like the first VSOP, the new printing press at Belmark is a hybrid configuration and is equipped with five offset and one flexo printing unit. It also has an automatic splicer for non-stop unwinding and an in line flatbed die cutter that allows cardboard to be cut, embossed, and creased in one hit. To speed up make-ready, Muller Martini has included a set-up rewinder between the printing press and the die cutter. This enables the press crew to change over both parts of the production line at the same time.

Belmark has elected to fit an electron beam (EB) curing system, which is ideal for food packaging, since the ink film is instantly cured all the way through. The result is a high-quality, low-odor and low-migration print product, manufactured without the use of photo initiators or the emission of VOCs.