LFP - Large-Format-Printing
Digital printing is the ultimate solution for Roltex
Thursday 02. December 2010 - Roltex, one of the biggest producers of serving trays in Europe, switched to digital printing at the beginning of 2008. This technique proved to be the ideal solution for the printing of the paper that is used in the production of the serving trays.
Karl and Philip Huylebroeck are since a couple of years in charge of the family company Roltex, which is situated in Erembodegem in Belgium. The firm produces polyester and melamine serving trays and has evolved to one of the biggest producers in Europe. Roltex used to turn to offset and screen printing to produce the paper that is used as the upper layer of the serving trays. But at the beginning of 2008, they switched to digital printing. Karl Huylebroeck explains: “In the past, we used offset to print the paper, but the ink that was used wasn’t ideal. The fixed costs for this job were also very high and clients chose more and more for small series. In short, offset had a lot of disadvantages for us. That’s why we started experimenting with inkjet. Unfortunately, we diagnosed that the special melamine paper absorbed the ink too much. The images were pale and blurred. Together with university professor Marc Van Parys, We started investigating the possibility to develop a coating for the paper. Thanks to this coating, the ink stays at the top of the paper, which makes prints sharper and more colourful.” Subsequently, Roltex obtained a patent for this coating and started its search for a good digital printer. “Roland offered us by far the best machine. The good contacts with the company and the dealers were a major asset for us as well,” says Karl Huylebroeck.
Today, Roltex still buys large rolls of paper with standard prints, but the company wants to start producing all prints digitally in the near future. “Digital printing gives us a bigger flexibility: proofing, small series, season and fashion related prints… it’s all possible and affordable for the client. Small breweries and catering companies that want to launch a special promotion for a certain target group are no longer bounded to series of hundreds and even thousands of pieces. In the future, we want to print everything ourselves with our SJ-645. We want to be the European trendsetter in the field of customized printing,” explains Karl Huylebroeck.
Roltex is the only Belgian producer of serving trays. At the moment, the company sells about one million serving trays a year. 85% of them are shipped to other European countries. With this, Roltex is one of the biggest producers in Europe, but the management believes that digital printing can strengthen their competitiveness even more.