Great Little Box Company (GLBC) of British Columbia, Canada has invested in a new HP Indigo 35K Digital Press to expand folding carton production capacity with a flexible solution to offer customers faster turnaround time and expanded application options.

The first commercially released HP Indigo 35K Digital Press, the new press is operating at the Great Little Box Company & Ideon Packaging site in Richmond, British Columbia, opening new production opportunities at the company where half its folding carton runs are below 5000 sheets, amid an upswing in demand for food and pharma products with high job diversity. Ideon Packaging is a folding carton specialist acquired by GLBC last year.

“We are continually investing in new technologies to bring the latest and greatest to our customers. Instead of investing in another offset press, we made a strategic decision to add capacity with HP Indigo digital. The Indigo solution will deliver production flexibility with offset matching quality – plus the bonus of digitally printing exact proofs for customers to sign off orders,” said Brad Tindall, President, GLBC.

The HP Indigo 35K is the third HP digital acquisition by GLBC in the past five years, as GLBC builds on experience with the HP Indigo 6800 label press and the HP Scitex 15000 for corrugated boxes and displays. GLBC has also set up the HP Indigo 35K press production line with a new Tresu iCoat II, offering full connectivity and integration with HP Indigo.

GLBC will use its new HP Indigo 35K to support the packaging market in Western Canada and Washington State with high-quality, folding cartons, including customers in the frozen foods, snacks, beer and beverages, cosmetics, and nutraceutical business. Some of GLBC’s customers have 100s of SKUs and GLBC plays a role in inventory management, according to Tindall.

“We are running at full capacity and the HP Indigo 35K will allow us to bring work back in house by migrating short-run folding carton work off of our 40 inch offset presses to digital, while becoming more efficient and cost-effective with digital by saving on tooling and significantly reduced make ready times and setup waste,” said Tindall.

The new press provides premium color including the new HP Indigo ElectroInk Premium White and high print quality. As well as the ability to print on substrates from 150 microns to capture applications such as rigid boxes and thick substrates such as beer board up to 25 pt (630 microns). In addition, new HP Indigo ElectroInk Invisible Yellow, track-and-trace solutions and security elements for multi-layered brand protection applications on one press, in one pass.

The use of the new Spot Master, a new efficient and accurate HP Indigo color accuracy technology, is also a key capability to enable GLBC to migrate from offset to digital to ensure customers have an offset-matching product. According to Tindall, label color accuracy has been a success on the HP Indigo 6800 and the addition of the HP Indigo 35K will add another application for customers to print consistent color and quality across HP Indigo digital printing with minimal waste and fastest turnaround time.

A family-run company established nearly 40 years ago, Great Little Box Company/Ideon Packaging produces corrugated boxes, retail displays, folding cartons, protective packaging, flexible packaging, and pressure-sensitive labels.