March 8, 2004 -- KBA North America, a leading sheetfed offset press manufacturer, has presented Southern Champion Tray, a large international packaging printer, with a hand-made replica of its KBA Rapida 142 56” six-color sheetfed press with tower coater to John Zeiser, president and CEO of Southern Champion Tray, and Bruce Zeiser, vice president of Southern Champion Tray. Southern Champion installed the new KBA Rapida 142 press in May 2003. The firm already operates a Rapida 105 41” seven-color sheetfed press with coater in its Texas facility.   “In the nine months that we’ve been operating the press, we’ve found it to be very efficient and produce very high quality work,” says John Zeiser.“We bought the new Rapida 142 to replace six older model presses. Typically, we would run three presses at a time; now we only need to run the Rapida 142. It’s been a huge step for us. With the Rapida 142 at our plant, we can pursue higher quality work. Plus, the new Rapida 142 is much more productive due to all of the automation.” Established in 1927, Southern Champion Tray is a third-generation family-owned business producing a wide variety of folding cartons used throughout the continental United States, Puerto Rico,Canada, and Mexico. A team of over 400 employees are based in the firm’s converting plants in Chattanooga,Tenn. and Mansfield,Texas. The company serves a broad base of markets, including bakery, foodservice, supermarket, institutional, industrial,retail, computers and electronics, personal care, hardware, automotive, medical, office supply, pet supplies, toys, textiles, and sporting goods. Its advanced sheetfed lithographic and flexographic web presses in six- and seven-color configurations along with converting capabilities such as slitting,sheeting, die cutting, gluing, windowing, clamshell, and tray forming provide a wide array of products for its customers. KBA North America is a leading supplier of sheetfed offset and digital presses located in Williston,VT. It is a member of the KBA Group, a leader in the manufacture of sheetfed offset, digital offset, web offset,rotogravure directory, security, and newspaper presses.   Please find a downloadable version of PR including photo at: www.kba-print.de/vt/headlines/sheetfed/2004-03-04/