Offset Printing
Edale 75 years and growing
Tuesday 08. October 2019 - For everyone who visited Edales stand at Labelexpo, apart from the companys distinctive orange livery, the first thing you will have noticed was there was no running press. James Boughton Edales Managing Director explains what seems quite a controversial decision.
“Labelexpo is an exhibition based around label printing and converting, and quite honestly as a manufacturer of printing presses if you cannot print you should not even be there. The Edale FL range has been producing award winning print quality for over 10 years so our printing capability has never been in question. The bigger issue in the market place today is how to reduce the unnecessary waste. Whilst 75 years old Edales has quite a young management team and the environmental issues discussed on a daily basis are something we feel strongly about and want to help by reducing our own environmental impact, albeit in a small way.”
By not running a press Edale saved more than 10,000KG of waste that would otherwise have been destined for landfill without fulfilling any purpose. If you extrapolate this for the top 10 press manufacturers at the show with each of these running two machines a total of 200,000KG would be sent for waste. James continues, “this waste is produced unnecessarily in our opinion and is only produced in the pursuit of profit with total disregard for the environment. As a company we want to be “green”. We are constantly using technology in our presses to reduce waste on set-up, by having the EZ REG Autonomous registration system along with the EZ DIE quick change die station waste is taken away from the operators control allowing for consistent and low waste figures.”
Edale is constantly looking at ways to improve our carbon footprint, the latest demonstration press to be installed in our showroom has LED curing. Having extensively researched the market, Edale has chosen its partner based on the fact that an astonishing 90% power saving can be achieved over conventional UV ARC systems, which results in a 75% overall power saving when taking the press and curing into account. James continues “Power is a major concern and will only get worse as the years pass by, power will not get cheaper it will only get more expensive. A by-product of not running a single demo press at label expo was that we saved the equivalent of running an average household for 50 days.”
Edales latest “ECO” innovation was prompted by one of our customers who has re-purposed many of the wooden shipping containers into work benches and furniture. Edale presses shipped in 2020 will include “Ikea Style” drawings detailing how to convert the packing cases into an “EZ BENCH” for the quick-change die cutting system.
James finally states, “going green is not easy and will take time for a company like Edale, however there is a common misunderstanding that going “green” impedes business performance. This is not true, because our decision not to print waste at the show did not affect the number of leads generated and 2020 looks set to match the record growth and sales to be achieved in 2019, perhaps not something all analogue press manufacturers can claim.”
2020 marks a major milestone as Edale celebrates its 75th birthday! We may not have grown quickly, nor huge, but we have been a constant from the start as a stable and reliable partner for label converters all around the World, a World that in our own small way are trying to protect.