Fujifilm announces that Suffolk, UK-based commercial printer Kingfisher Press has purchased a Jet Press 720S, Fujifilm’s high-quality B2 format inkjet press. The investment will significantly boost Kingfisher’s ability to take on quality short-run work.
 
“We went to drupa with no fixed plan to buy any specific kit,” said company founder Paul Tomlin. “While there, in looking at all of our options, we decided that we had three choices as to how to proceed: we could buy nothing and continue as we were, running the risk that our competitors would start to leave us behind; we could invest in a new litho press, which would offer us a slight improvement in speed and quality; or we could invest in a Jet Press 720S and open up a whole new revenue stream. When we looked at it like that, it wasn’t a difficult decision.”
 
“We have multiple small accounts who currently don’t even ask us to quote on much of their short run work,” said Jon Doidge, one of the company’s co-directors. “Until now we just haven’t had the capability to compete for short run, high quality work – and given current trends this sort of work is going to become an increasingly large part of the overall marketplace. Run lengths will keep coming down as people don’t want their money tied up in stock and they like the flexibility of being able to make modifications and amends between runs.
 
“Then there’s the benefit of personalization – another major string to our bow that the Jet Press will provide,” Doidge added. “It’s not just an extra piece of kit, it’s a gateway to a whole new revenue stream for us, both with existing customers and new ones. We’ll send a lot of our short-run litho work there – freeing up space to do more, longer runs on those presses – and at the same time we’ll be able to pitch for new customers we couldn’t have approached in the past.”