Bridging the Gap

These days, the more you can offer your customers in house the better. By not outsourcing certain phases of the label printing process, such as foil stamping or embossing, you can reduce the time it takes to get your order to your customer. It also allows for some cost cutting, the savings from which you could pass onto your customer.

But, any label printer will tell you that no label is the same, no customer demand is the same, and few print runs are the same. Adding capabilities like faux embossing or foil stamping to your process can be tricky if you don’t want to make the investment in offline finishing machinery. One option, combination printing, allows printers to employ several effects using one press.

Combination printing allows package/label printers to print using flexo, screen, digital, or other printing processes, and employ stamping or embossing effects as well. Modularity is key—not every print job is the same, so the ability to use each process in whatever order the print job demands is paramount.

GS, Inc. (Pascoag, R.I.) decided to employ combination printing after it began producing labels for the health and beauty market around 2000.

A strategic move

GS, Inc., founded in 1987 by Bert and Nancy Mountford, is operated by their sons Jason and Josh. “We started out with a 2-color, 7˝ press,” says Jason Mountford. “Our main market was thermal transfer labels and display cards for the jewelry and hair goods industry.” He explains that Rhode Island was a major center in the jewelry industry so it provided GS with a large and varied customer base. The 1990s saw a decline of the local jewelry industry as more and more of those products were manufactured and packaged in Asia. “With the loss of some of our core business, we decided to pursue new markets in the food industry and move into higher quality labels,” says Mountford.

With the move came the company’s first 8-color press, a Nilpeter FA-2400, which arrived in 1996. “The Nilpeter gave us the ability to produce high-quality, multi-color labels and started our push toward widespread use of -4-color process in a number of jobs,” adds Mountford. As the jewelry customers practically vanished, GS grew the food industry segment of the business to the point where it is still the largest percentage of its sales today.

Today, GS, Inc. uses six presses, employs 19 people, and produces printed product in a 34,000-sq.-ft. facility. According to Mountford, the -company’s guiding operating philosophy is: “Always try to do everything to the highest level possible.” To achieve this end, GS assists its customers as much as possible with their jobs. “We understand that the printing process may be a total unknown for some of them,” comments Mountford. “In that case, we try to educate them about our process so they will be able to make better decisions going forward.” GS also consults with customers on their jobs—giving them ideas to reduce costs and optimize their designs for the print processes they choose. “Every label looks perfect on the proof sheet or the computer screen,” Mountford explains. “But, in transferring that to the press, some things can get lost in the translation. We try to use our -experience to bridge this gap for the customer.”

Creating the combination label

Producing goods for the health and beauty market meant finding a press that would do the job GS needed done. According to Mountford, the company knew it wanted to offer UV flexo, UV screen, and hot stamping. It also wanted to perform each of these processes in whatever order the print job demanded. “After evaluating all of the presses on the market, we chose the Gallus EM280 as the best fit for us,” he says.

Before purchasing the Gallus press, the company had no capability for screen/combination printing. The EM280’s interchangeable print heads accommodated the processes GS wanted to utilize. “The modular head system eliminates the need for a ‘rail system’ where the screen heads and hot stamping units are located overhead of the flexo print stations,” adds Mountford. Also impressive to GS was Gallus’s screeny system of rotary screen printing. “The system to make the screen forms is very easy to use and allows us to make all our screens in house,” says Mountford. He claims that these features have allowed the company to target short to medium runs in the combination label market in a cost-effective manner.

“Screen/combination printing has allowed us to offer our customers a lot of additional options when it comes to printing their labels,” claims -Mountford. “We have been able to acquire new business because of these capabilities and at the same time satisfy our current customers and/or keep them from looking elsewhere for screen/combo labels.”

As screen printing has become more widely used, Mountford says GS has seen more specialized applications such as tactile printing, faux embossing using screen print, and high-luster metallics. “All of these screen printing techniques can really add value to a label or package and give customers the shelf impact they are looking for,” he states. He also cautions that because of the higher costs involved with printing a combination label, (e.g., screen material and higher ink usage) some printers attempt to replicate [the screen process] with UV flexo, especially in terms of opaque white on clear substrates. “While this reduces costs,” he says, “it doesn’t have the high impact of true screen-printed labels.”

An eye toward the environment

Sustainability initiatives are catching on, consumers are beginning to get the idea, and printers are addressing this market demand.

GS, Inc.’s own initiatives cover the gamut of printing supplies. “Currently we are in the process of testing many of the new ‘green’ materials that are being released,” explains Mountford. These include paper facestocks with a percentage of post-consumer waste, and “once [we complete] testing, we will be able to offer these materials as an option to our customers,” he adds. GS has also been working with its ink supplier, Water Ink Technologies, which has been developing new water-based inks and UV flexo inks that use renewable resources in their formulations. “The inks are both soy-content-compliant and replace 85 percent of the petroleum-based raw materials used in conventional inks with materials derived from renewable resources,” comments Mountford.

History of adaptation

Now in its 21st year of operation, a second generation of Mountfords now handles GS, Inc.’s operations. Over time, the company has proven itself capable of adapting to market conditions. Focusing on its customers and helping them “bridge the gap” between the design phase and finished product has proven to be no less important than adapting to market changes. With the emergence of sustainability initiatives, GS has proven to be proactive by testing sustainable substrates and working with its inks supplier to provide inks manufactured from renewable resources. No print job is the same, and the printing industry constantly evolves. GS is one company that will continue to keep pace if its history is any teacher. pP