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BUSINESS INSPECTION KALAS PACKAGING
In 2016, managing director of Boston,
New technology blossoms
Lincolnshire-based Kalas Packaging
Jonathan Padley was looking for
something that would help his then
seven-staff “niche” business to break
through the £2m-turnover ceiling.
The challenge
Specialising in printing horticulture trays and
labels, as well as some food packaging, for
some of the UK’s major retailers, the business
was spending around six figures annually
farming out a lot of this core business, with its
KBA Karat B2 UV litho press running at full
capacity.
So Padley wanted not only to bring this back
in-house, but to diversify its offering to futureproof
the business.
New technology, he decided, was the route
to follow.
“We looked at several areas, but all we would
be doing was reinventing the wheel if we
bought ourselves a small UV carton press, for
example,” Padley states. “We wanted to do
something different and really it’s digital and
the ability to do variable data, personalisation
and randomisation that is the future.
“We followed the progress of HP Indigo
Printweek April & May 2020
presses to the point that they started to print
on a B2 format and then we waited for them to
be able to print on heavier substrates and
synthetics with light fast inks,” he explained.
Robust, light fast inks are a must for horticulture
printing due to the very nature of the
product life: plant labels will sit in glass houses
for the duration of a growing cycle before they
are transferred to the stores where they will
often sit outside, Padley adds.
And so, when HP unveiled its Indigo 30000
digital folding carton press in 2012 with the
ability to use light fast inks, Kalas went on to
sign a letter of intent at Drupa 2016, making it
the first UK business to do so.
The simplex device, which prints at speeds
of up to 4,600 B2 sheets per hour, takes a maximum
sheet size of 750x530mm and media
thickness ranges between 250 and 630
microns. It prints at a top resolution of
2,438dpi in a maximum of seven colours:
CMYK plus orange, violet and green, and is
integrated with a Tresu iCoat 30000 flexo
coater.
“It was a completely entrepreneurial decision,
meaning we had no actual business for
the press at the time, because we wanted to be
the first to get the machine and then develop
the market once we had it,” explains Padley.
The method
The eagerly-awaited Indigo was delivered to
Kalas Packaging’s facility at the end of October
2016, where it was installed into a newly built
280sqm, climate-controlled extension, which
had expanded Kalas’ premises size to
1,200sqm.
Changes were also made to the repro
division layout, and new staff were taken on to
accommodate the device’s anticipated output
with production scheduled to begin the following
January.
What happened over the course of the next
three years is rather shrouded in mystery, but
full production as had been anticipated was
not to come until just this last autumn. It is
understood by PrintWeek that the device itself
was, perhaps, simply not ready for market.
“It has taken three years to overcome some
technical difficulties and teething problems in
general, and to get everything running the way
we wanted it. That’s all I can say,” says a tightlipped
Padley.
He also concedes that the business itself
would have benefited from doing more
research into what direction the company
wanted to take, before the actual installation.
“Admittedly, a bit more work in advance
might have been better for us. But that said, we
KALAS PACKAGING
Location Boston, Lincolnshire
Inspection host Jonathan Padley, managing
director
Established 2009
Size £2m / 15 staff
Product list Horticultural care cards, tray labels
and pot wraps for plants, food cartons and
sleeves all on synthetics; small cartons for
pharma, cosmetics and tobacco industries;
premium W2P personalised gift packaging
Kit Front end: Infigo W2P engine; Esko Plato
step-and-repeat, Fujifilm XMF workflow, Tilia
Labs Phoenix imposition software
Production HP Indigo 30000 digital carton press
with inline priming and Tresu UV coater with
pattern varnish blanket CAD cutter; KBA Karat B2
waterless direct imaging UV press; Bobst SP76
cutting and stripping; Duran Omega 700 side
seam and crash lock folding carton gluer;
Kawahara TXR 800 blanking machine with
bespoke conveyor system; Heidelberg SBG
cylinder; Autobond Film laminator; Wohlenberg
B1 guillotine
Inspection focus Investing in a unique printing
system to open new revenue streams
Words Hannah Jordan
Taking steps to future-proof the business meant going down the digital route