The 20-staff printer, which is based in the Southern NSW town of Pambula, made the $500,000 investment following months of deliberation on how to replace its old five-colour Heidelberg.

The machine was purchased through ProPrint’s sister company, pressxchange.com “the largest, most up-to-date international marketplace for used printing equipment.”

Owner Ann Mogridge told ProPrint that finding the exact press to match the company’s needs was a tough process.

“There was a lot of debate over digital versus offset, but we decided that there was still room for a Heidelberg Speedmaster and we decided to ramp up our marketing in conjunction with the investment,” she said.

“We wanted a secondhand Speedmaster with drying, vario dampening and aqueous coating capabilities, which is very hard to come by in Australia. We managed to source it through a British company and it was shipped to Melbourne from America. Because of the strength of the Australian dollar at the time, we were able to lock-in and purchase it for a really good price.”

Local MP Mike Kelly launched the new printing press, which was installed by engineers flown over from the UK.

Excell operates two digital sites and one offset production hub across the Southern NSW coast and services a number of educational facilities such as UNSW, as well as various government departments.

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