HANOVER PARK, Ill., February 2003 – Salt Lake City, Utah-based Associated Foods Stores Inc. has more than doubled its scanning productivity with the installation of Fujifilm’s Quattro flatbed scanner, says imaging manager Todd Humphrey. "We have a big in-house printing operation and ad agency," Humphrey explains. "We do all of the art, design and prepress work ourselves. We print about 250 versions, totaling approximately two million handbills per week. The Quattro has helped us in a lot of different ways." He adds, "We were using a Howtek drum scanner, which was very labor intensive. It had a small scanning surface and it took longer to scan the images. About 14 times per year, we print a general merchandise calendar with 300 to 700 different scans. In the past, it took about two weeks and 40 hours of overtime to scan and place the images. Now, we can do it in a week with only 15 to 20 hours of overtime." The Quattro has a much larger scanning surface than the scanner the company previously used, reports Humphrey, and the Quattro automates the scanning process with its software component, ColourKit. "We have a private label brand of grocery called Western Family and we use a digital camera to shoot the products to add to our photo library and our handbills," Humphrey notes. He also says the company can now run those pictures through ColourKit to adjust resolution, dot gain and color casts instead of using a separate Photoshop plug-in because the ColourKit software stores various profiles. Associated Foods has always used Fujifilm’s plates and ColorArt proofing system so it is a natural progression to consider the company’s Saber violet laser CTP device, says Humphrey, adding that the volume of printing the company does prompted them to look at the Saber platesetter. "We went to Chicago to look at a demo and we’re considering adding it in 2003." Associated Foods is a cooperative that is owned by more than 500 independent grocery stores. The company is a one-million-square-foot wholesale grocery distributor with one central warehouse in Farr West, Utah. Associated Foods also has warehouses in Helena and Billings, Mont. Its printing department not only distributes weekly handbills, but also maintains a merchandise calendar for its members and prints the annual report internally. Headquartered in Hanover Park, Ill., the Graphic Systems Division of Fuji Photo Film U.S.A., Inc. offers a full array of high-quality products and services including: Saber, the world’s fastest platesetter in its class; Dart and the Javelin Series, cost-effective thermal platesetters; Sumo, the world’s fastest imagesetter; the Brillia line of thermal and visible light digital plates; FINALPROOF, a digital halftone dot contract proofing product; PictroProof, a dye-based digital color proofing system; and Quattro, the award-winning flatbed color scanner with ColourKit color management software. Fujifilm’s line of color electronics equipment includes a complete range of imagesetters, RIPs, flatbed scanners and computer-to-plate systems. In addition, Fujifilm has a full line-up of film products and aqueous-based conventional subtractive plates.