Labelcraft produce labels for a variety of markets, including wine, pharmaceuticals and retail/food. Its labels are renowned worldwide, with one of its labels recently winning an international award. Ian Dixon, Labelcraft general manager, was one of the dedicated Labelcraft staff on hand to show visitors through the Sydney facility, based at Leichhardt.
The company has factories in Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane, and with the purchase of Perth’s Labelworld earlier this month, it now has a presence in Western Australia.
“We see the potential in Western Australia, particularly with the Margaret River wineries of course. But the best asset in that purchase would easily be the staff,” says Dixon.
The centrepiece of the tour was the company’s Gallus TCS 250, which has six conventional offset units printing with solvent and water-based inks, as well as screenprinting, foiling, embossing and die-cutting all in one pass. It is also capable of running a variety of different substrates. It is the largest configuration available of that press, and according to Labelcraft, it is almost constantly running.
Dixon says that one of the key mandates of his company is to run a clean and efficient workshop, believing that it is one of the aspects of Labelcraft that keeps it ahead of many of its competitors.
“You’re only as good as your machinery, and cleanliness is a big part of that”, says Dixon.
The company also has a dedicated flexographic division, Currently, Labelcraft doesn’t have a combination flexo press, but according to Dixon, he envisions that a flexo, screen and foil combination press, most likely from Gallus, will be the next key equipment acquisition.
The tour also took in the prepress, platemaking and finishing departments of the factory. Over dinner, visitors were given a deeper insight into the company, as well as a number of predicted future trends in label manufacturing, with Terry Rowney, Labelcraft managing director.
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