Appleton Coated introduces Utopia Inkjet and Utopia Book Inkjet products for high-speed, four-color, inkjet web platforms in North America. Utopia Inkjet coating technology was developed jointly with HP to supply coated product to early adopters of high-speed, inkjet web presses. With the optimized coating of Utopia Inkjet, printers can run high-quality, full-color jobs at 400+ feet per minute – an industry first for high-volume continuous-feed inkjet production platforms.

"Appleton Coated is very excited to be at the forefront of this innovation by providing Utopia Inkjet coated paper optimized for this technology. The new products are designed to help move this growing segment forward by providing the first viable coated paper solution for high-quality, color printing," says Ann Whalen, Appleton Coated's senior vice president of marketing and services.

"This new high-speed inkjet web technology gives marketers a unique opportunity to drive value in direct mail and commercial printing applications by bringing together high-quality, four-color print and personalization, at much higher speeds and lower costs than traditional digital presses, "she continues. "The direct mail and book publishing segments are poised to take advantage of the new technology – hence the two product offerings."

For direct mail applications, Utopia Inkjet is offered in 60-, 70-, 80- and 100-pound text in dull and matte finishes, and 65- and 80-pound cover in dull finish, and 7-point and 9-point cover in matte finish. A gloss finish product is in development with expected availability by year end.

Research indicates that personalized, four-color direct mail drives a 5.5% increase in response over static, black-only print. Whalen adds, "Marketers realize this and look to printers to provide value by producing projects in the most efficient, high-quality, and personalized manner possible. This trend allows printers to increase their revenue, while reducing cost and waste in the process."

For the publishing market, Utopia Book Inkjet is offered in 45-pound matte text.

"High-speed, inkjet web press technology is a game-changer for the book publishing business," says Paul Bradshaw, Appleton Coated's senior vice president of publishing papers. "This technology can have a dramatic impact on improving the publisher's supply chain by lowering finished goods inventories and reducing the cost of obsolescence. It will immediately improve the supply chain by lowering costs for the custom publishing business and has even more potential for improvement on the short-run offset side of the business."

Utopia Inkjet products contain a minimum of 10% post-consumer recovered fiber and are available with Forest Stewardship Council (FSC) certification and green power.