Over the past decade or so, the company has bought eight Xeikon presses and as soon as Allum saw what the Xeikon LX3000 five-colour dry-toner label press was capable of producing he knew he would soon be purchasing a ninth machine from the Belgian-based manufacturer.

“Digital technology seems to move forward every two to three years and we’ve always strived to purchase the latest machine,” explains Allum. “We’re a Xeikon house because I believe it’s the most environmental method of digital printing. Xeikon is always three to four years ahead of the game with all the various environmental requirements for the toners. We understand their technology and our customers come to us because we have this particular technology and because of the environmental benefits of that particular printing process.”

Like Xeikon, Allum prides himself on always being one step ahead of the competition, so at Drupa last year, he jumped at the chance to sign for the first Xeikon LX3000 press to be installed in the UK.

“If we can, we like to be one of the first,” he says. “I think we were one of the first to have the CX300, non-beta, and we were the first non-beta site to have the LX3000. This approach has been very beneficial to us.”

The LX3000 has been christened the ‘Lion’ and Allum confirms it is a beast of a machine. “On the LX300 we were running at around 30-32 metres a minute and on the new machine this jumps to well over 40 metres a minute. We can get another 30% to 40% from the machine using the same operators and the same floor space.”

A key added benefit of the LX3000 for Allum and the company’s growing band of customers is the company’s toner has got a very high recycled content.

“We run it on the new QBE, which is an eco toner, and has about 56% recycled content,” he says. “The cost of the toner is about 15% to 20% lower than the normal toner and part of the deal was that if we chose a new machine they would also convert our other existing machines to the QBE toner.”

Allum says he didn’t consider looking at machines produced by rival manufacturers before he placed his order for the LX3000 for all of the reasons cited above, in addition to other factors.

“Taking a jump in digital presses is not like bouncing from a Mark Andy flexo press to an MPS, which fundamentally print the same. Some of the software might be different, but they basically do the same thing. With digital presses, they’re such different processes you really have to start from ground zero again. So it probably takes you a year to get your head around it, because there will be slightly different varnishes, there will be different ways you cut it, there will be certain things it can do and there will be certain things it can’t, because not every digital press can do everything.”

That said, Allum believes the Xeikon machines are “getting there” when it comes to doing everything and they are superior to anything else on the market.

“It can print on just about every material,” he says. “The heat problem has gone, the cracking problem has gone, the chipping problem we know how to manage that when we’re doing five colour, because the advantage of the Xeikons is you’ve got a straight through five colour, so it doesn’t make any difference to the speed. We can run five colours at 40 metres a minute or we can run four colours at 40 metres a minute.

“With some machines the more colours you put down, the slower they get, whereas with the Xeikon it doesn’t make any difference. That’s one of the major benefits. We don’t have to worry about how many colours are on it and we already know what our running speed is going to be.”

That’s not to say that Allum and his team didn’t put the LX3000 through a robust testing process before signing on the dotted line.

“We went over to Belgium for a live test,” he recalls. “We sent over our materials and myself and my press manager ran the press for two days and put it through its paces. It was all very satisfactory and we really benefited when it came to the install because we already knew the press was going to work, so it fitted in relatively quickly. Sometimes if you take a brand new press and put a new operator on it can take a while to bed in, but this time it went straight in and we were up and running within a week.”

Because the Abbey Labels team are so familiar with Xeikon software and technology another additional benefit for Allum is it is easy for him to swap employees between the presses.

“I’ve got another operator to add to the three operators who are already trained up on the machines and hopefully, when he gets up to speed I may even swap a CX300 for another LX3000.”

When put on the spot Allum struggles to choose the one thing he likes the most about the Xeikon because he is spoilt for choice.

“I love the consistency of speed and the high quality it produces and then there is the reduced cost of the toner,” he says.

The added volume he’s able to put through The Lion is another major benefit. “A lot of the early digital work we handled was a couple of 100 metres to 500 metres and then you had the odd 1,000 metre job. Now we’re running jobs of 3,000 to 10,000 metres quite happily. It’s allowed us to put a slightly larger volume through it in terms of the length of job, and it’s narrowed the gap even more between our flexo presses.”

Another key benefit he cites is the machine’s ability to print silver and to produce high quality work on a wide range of different substrates.

“Like most digital presses, silver is a challenge to run and we run an enormous amount of silver,” says Allum. “From the outset, they [Xeikon] didn’t over promise, which is great. They said ‘you won’t be able to run silver at 40 [metres a minute]’. I think other people find running silver on a Xeikon quite a challenge, but we’ve been doing it for a decade now and we know exactly what we’re doing. But I’m not going to give the secret away as to how you do it.

“We have also got the machine to run other materials at 42 [metres a minute] and Xeikon said ‘Oh, we didn’t think you could run that’. You have to find the right manufacturer of the material, but yes you can and we are.”

Thanks to this combination of benefits the new machine has significantly boosted the company’s turnover, which is why Allum is already considering adding another LX3000 to his growing armoury of Xeikons.

“We’ve had to employ another two finishers, because of the volume of work it’s putting through,” he adds. “Digital presses have got so good at printing multiple jobs quickly there’s always a bottleneck in finishing, so I’ve had to boost my finishing by putting another couple of guys in there.”