Anthony Locicero, Associate editor02.18.21
William Say & Co. said it chose to demonstrate the new potential for customization and personalization of printed cans by commissioning and forming a run of 100 unique individual tins to give away as Christmas gifts to valued customers.
These cans were all printed on a Fujifilm Acuity B1 by Tinmasters at its plant in Swansea, UK.
"We’ve been watching developments in digital print technology in our industry for a while,” said Stuart Wilkinson, marketing and sales director at William Say & Co. “We actually had the privilege of working directly with Fujifilm to produce a short run of hot chocolate tins for a special Fortnum and Mason in-store display early last year. Since then, things have moved on even further."
In 2020 Fujifilm entered into a technology partnership with Tinmasters. As part of this relationship, Tinmasters bought and installed an Acuity B1 inkjet printer at its Swansea site.
"We’ve worked with Tinmasters for many years,” Wilkinson said. “And now it has this partnership with Fujifilm, and the ability to print extremely high quality short-run work, it was perfectly placed to help us. We’re really excited about the growth potential inkjet offers our business and our industry and we wanted a way to clearly demonstrate this to our own customers.
"We printed a run of 100 tins, in full color, each with a unique series number. It was a simple exercise that would have been extremely complex and costly using traditional offset print," Wilkinson continued.
"Inkjet is going to transform the print for metal packaging industry in the same way it has every other print sector from labels, to commercial print to sign and display," added Kevin Jenner, business manager, Fujifilm Wide Format Inkjet Systems. "It’s happening later and more slowly than it has in other sectors – but it is happening. We’re proud to be driving that change and all the possibilities it brings, and we’re delighted to be working with companies like William Say and Tinmasters to make it a reality."
