Third Edale installed in South Africa

Invisible Card Company (PTY) Ltd in South Africa has just purchased an Edale Beta with combination IR and UV drying, laminating, cold foiling and a delivery table. This would be the third Edale in South Africa.

ICC specializes in secure pre-paid scratch cards for the telephony industry, scratch-off tickets and vouchers for the gaming industry, promotional games and cards for the retail market, and related services. The company started as recently as 2003 by its two shareholders with their own finances; it was profitable in its first year with a turnover in excess of R7 million, climbing to in excess R30 million in 2006.

Oscar Smuts, logistics/projects manager of ICC, said: ‘We invited four different flexo press manufacturers to submit quotations, and Edale was the only one who listened to us and matched our specification exactly.’ He went on to say that owing to their increasing growth they wanted a press that could grow with them and a manufacturer that they were happy to form this partnership with. They hope to extend their Beta in the future, as other printers have done – up to as many as fourteen print stations. ICC is also reportedly interested in the positional advantages Edale’s new ‘plug and play’ Lambda press would offer.

Floors Coetzee, Edale’s South African agent, also particularly impressed them, who they said went ‘above and beyond’ in assisting from enquiry process through to the order and installation. Smuts said, ‘With Floors’s technical knowledge and support and with the knowledge that there were already Alphas operating successfully in South Africa we were confident in our decision to buy an Edale.

‘Another reason we chose the Beta was after we analyzed all the equipment in terms of servicing both our basic needs, and allowing us to diversify, we found the Beta was more economical as we could take on extra business without needing to change overheads. It was also competitively priced despite being in pounds.’

The Beta is replacing a Miller TP15 sheet fed offset machine and will be ICC’s first flexo press. It will run alongside Heidelberg die cutting and foiling platters as well as sheet fed digital HP indigo printers, among others.

The Invisible Card Company service mainly overseas customers but are now looking to attack the South African label market, with specific interest in the wine label market of the Western Cape, hence the specification of cold foiling. However to begin with they will be mainly printing phone cards with four to seven colors (some of which will be done in two runs).