Redacción Alabrent
Forming part of the Bluetree Group, Route One Print is a Virgin Fast track 100 company that operates from a 9,000m2 production facility near Rotherham and employs 260 people. Offering digital, lithographic and wide format print products, it is investing in Fujifilm’s Jet Press 720S to produce ultra-high quality business cards, produced with a personal flourish.“Business cards are a high-value product,” says business co-founder, James Kinsella. “They’re often the first impression a potential customer might get, so they need to look right. We print a lot of them for customers and historically we have always litho-produced them to achieve the level of quality our customers expect. The problem with producing them like this though is that we lack the flexibility to vary the finishes from one job to the next – offering spot UV finishes for instance, or rounded corners. We wanted a digital press that would give us the flexibility to add distinctive touches like this much more easily, but crucially, the quality had to be at least as good as litho.”
“We’ve put a number of digital presses to the test on this task,” adds Kinsella’s business partner and co-founder, Adam Carnell. “But we had struggled to find anything that didn’t require us to sacrifice the quality we were used to for digital flexibility. The Jet Press 720S had been on our radar for some time; we’ve watched its development closely and at drupa 2016 we got a good look at it up close. That visit convinced us that this machine could give us the added flexibility we needed – without any compromise on quality.”
Kinsella and Carnell are clear on what the future of print looks like: “It’s digital and it’s automated,” says Kinsella. “We’re always looking to the future and we see this investment in the Jet Press 720S as a very important stepping stone on that road. We have been a Fujifilm plates customer for around eighteen months and have a lot of respect for Fujifilm as a company. It is a great brand with an excellent support network, as well as offering some of the best technology out there, so the company is well placed to support us in getting the very best out of the Jet Press 720S.”
Chris Broadhurst, General Manager at Fujifilm Graphics System UK, says: “We’re delighted to see the fourth installation of our Jet Press 720S here in the UK – it is another testament to the outstanding combination of quality and flexibility that the Jet Press 720S offers as a digital press.”
Speaking about the ongoing relationship with the Bluetree Group, Broadhurst said: “It is great to be continuing collaboration with such a progressive company who invest in progressive technology. We look forward to seeing how the Jet Press 720S helps their business grow further.”