Redacción Alabrent
Founded in Marrakesh in 1979, SITI provides turnkey solutions for premium tea packing, producing up to 1.5 million stitched teabags a day. Since installing their first HP Indigo digital press in 2013, SITI’s fleet has expanded to six presses – two HP Indigo 6800, three HP Indigo 20000, and one HP Indigo 5600 – which provide the business with the flexibility and speed-to-market needed in order to keep up with ongoing trends such as customisation.One of the founders of SITI, Hamza El Baroudi, is using SITI’s fleet of digital presses, including the HP Indigo 6800, to launch his new venture, My Tea Card, which sees business cards being printed onto sachets of teabags.
“The idea began in 2013 when I was about to leave for an important industry event, before realising that I had no business cards left.” Explains El Baroudi. “Having called the printing manager at SITI, another problem arose in that there was no card left to print a new batch of business cards on.”
At the time, the company’s HP Indigo 6600 was being used to print flexible substrates for tea sachets, which motivated Hamza’s decision to have his business cards printed onto a teabag sachet.
At the event, the teabag business cards were surprisingly a huge hit. People were curious and started sharing them, including HP Indigo’s chairman at the time, who immediately became amazed and presented the teabags during his speech to the attendees. From this, My Tea Card was born.
When speaking about how HP Indigo presses have helped his new venture, El Baroudi said, “The HP Indigo technology made it easy for us to produce small quantities for each customer, whilst at the same time maintain the highest visual quality that SITI is known for”.
Prior to using HP Indigo technology, SITI worked with outsourced printing partners. This meant that small volume demands became problematic, as their speed to market was slow which affected SITI’s overall processes.
However, having made the transition to digital and investing in a range of HP Indigo presses, SITI now prints 100 per cent inhouse, giving the company faster turnaround times and the ability to deliver high-quality products regardless of volume demands.
HP’s digital technology also gives SITI no limitations when it comes to development opportunities. The HP Indigo presses are enabling SITI to make quick proofs on final substrates and even print on difficult materials, including compositable packaging, providing their customers with the confidence to know that whatever they want to produce, SITI can deliver.