ADDISON, Ill. -- For Toyo Ink America, the proof that Print '09 was a resounding success was found not in overall foot traffic but, rather, in the seriousness of visitors.

"Clearly, total attendance at Print '09 was down compared to the Print '05 show," observed John Copeland, president and chief operating officer of Toyo Ink America. "Having said that, people came to the Toyo booth in higher numbers and with a strong sense of purpose. We hosted significantly more visitors at Print '09 than at Print '05. As a result of the keen interest shown across the entire Toyo product line, we accomplished what we set out to do. We generated many qualified leads, converted potential customers into new customers and signed up new distributors. We are extremely pleased with the outcome."

With its exhibition space built around the theme "The Proof is in the Print," Toyo Ink America unveiled several new products, as well as highlighted its huge portfolio of inks, adhesives and printing-related consumables. Toyo sales associates explained the advantages of the company's sheetfed, web, inkjet, UV, flexible packaging, high-tech and soy-based inks, among others.

"Attendees representing companies of all sizes wanted to learn as much as they could about a wide range of Toyo products," Copeland said. "At the same time, there seemed to be particular interest during this show in our high-performance heatset web inks. Many commercial web printers are facing challenging times, and they are looking for inks that will help them produce work more efficiently and with better quality."

Copeland added that Toyo's new and existing UV formulations and environmentally friendly products also attracted considerable attention among showgoers. He pointed to Toyo FD LED ink. FD LED is hard-dried with UV rays produced by dedicated light emitting diodes (LEDs).

"FD LED ink is formulated for commercial, package and label printing," Copeland noted. "xpedx demonstrated the Ryobi 756G in a live print production environment using FD LED ink. The Ryobi 756G is an enhanced 31 x 23-inch press equipped with an LED-UV curing unit."

Toyo Ink America introduced UV Eco Soy, a new series of UV-curable process inks for commercial sheetfed and folding carton printing, at Print '09. Made from domestically grown soybeans, UV Eco Soy combines the environmental benefits of UV applications and soybean oil. It has only fractional levels of volatile organic compounds (VOCs).

Print '09 also marked the world debut of UV PowerFLEX Flexographic Inks. High in strength and low in viscosity, UV PowerFLEX improves color density, printing quality and production efficiency.

Toyo's brand-new Alliance Process TIA Series offers cost-conscious printers vegetable oil-based inks that improve press performance at a generous quality-to-price ratio.

LIOJET(TM) SR, an environmentally friendly solvent-based ink for inkjet printing systems, had its U.S. introduction, along with the UV-cured LIOJET(TM) FV and LIOJET(TM) NC inkjet inks.

In addition to showcasing its products and services, Toyo Ink America set up two computer stations where booth visitors could see the exclusive Toyo Value Calculator in action. The Value Calculator permits comparisons between Toyo inks and other manufacturers' products.

"People were pleasantly surprised and impressed because the Value Calculator demonstrates so plainly the cost savings they can realize from printing with Toyo inks," Copeland said.

Despite a turnout that fell short of show organizers' predictions, the international character of Print '09 was very much in evidence at the Toyo Ink America booth, according to Copeland.

"We anticipated a good response from U.S. printers, but we were delighted that potential customers from Latin America came specifically to see some of our technologies," he remarked. "We made a large number of contacts and now have opened more sales areas to offer Toyo products to printers in Latin American countries."