Jet Label
People say you shouldn’t judge a book by its cover, but there’s no question consumers judge a product by its label.
Smart, attractive packaging and labels are one of the most important things a producer can do to increase sales, whether it’s a jar of blueberry jam, or a bottle of Okanagan Merlot.
Jet Label is now making it easier and less expensive for food and wine producers to brand their products with labels that really pop. The company has invested in two high-tech printing presses; the HP Indigo WS6600. Jet is currently the only company in Canada with two of these presses, each of which cost $1.7 million.
“We were the first in Canada to buy this press, and even today we’re the only ones that have two,” says President and CEO Darrell Friesen. “It was a huge investment for us, but we feel it was worth it because we can now offer our customers better quality and more flexibility for a much lower price.”
The new presses have changed the very nature of Jet Labels’ business. “We used to be the ‘cheap and easy’ guys,” Friesen says. “Now, these presses allow us to get into the very high end labelling business, so among other things we are moving into the wine label business.
“We have the equipment; now it’s just our will to get out there and develop a relationship with wineries in the Okanagan who demand that high quality, but would like to see some cost savings.”
The Indigo digital press offers three key advantages over traditional ‘Flexo’ presses:
Price. With digital printing producers can do smaller runs at huge cost savings. “This is ideal for those wineries that might do 50,000 bottles a year, but have 10,000 of one variety, 5,000 of another, and so on,” says Friesen.
Flexibility. The flexo style press requires very large print runs to be economical, because a plate has to be created for each label. With digital, the image goes straight to the press and elements of the label can be changed as they’re being printed. One winery in Mexico used this to put seven different works of art on their limited edition wine bottles.
Quality. The print quality and accuracy for Indigo machines is very high, partly because digital allows for better colour reproduction with less work. “We just never have that ‘quality conversation’ with people about whether the red is red enough or the yellow is intense enough,” says Friesen. “With this machine you just pick the pantone colour and it is perfect, absolutely perfect.”
Jet Label will be demonstrating their new digitally produced labels at the Pacific Agriculture Show, at Booth 729. Learn more about the Indigo press at this URL: http://www.jet-label.com/our-story/. ■
