Ricoh Europe, Duesseldorf, – Hansaprint, a leading innovative printing house in the Nordic region and part of the TS-Group, is printing two of the world's most prestigious high quality newspapers after ordering the first Ricoh Pro VC60000 continuous feed production inkjet platform in the world in 2014.

The Financial Times (FT) and the International New York Times (INYT) for readers in Finland are now printed by Hansaprint in Turenki, Finland. Hansaprint's Unit Director, Jukka Saariluoma, says, "All of the pieces slotted into place for printing of the newspapers in Finland to begin. We are pleased that we have received great feedback from our customers. They think that the new system works impeccably!"

Peter Slaughter, Chief Production Officer for the Financial Times, believes that the printed newspaper will remain a powerful force and says that the publication has received a good response to the new distribution schedule enabled by digitally printing the newspaper. Most notable is the fact that newspapers can now be in the hands of readers by 7AM.

Davy Drieghe, Distribution Operations Director for the International New York Times, highlights the importance of a reliable distribution schedule for printed newspapers. This is a key benefit of INYT being printed digitally in Finland, and it enables readers to get the most recent edition in a timely fashion.

"These prestigious business wins are a testament to the high quality produced by the Pro VC60000," says Benoit Chatelard, Vice President, Production Printing, Ricoh Europe. "Hansaprint has a diverse portfolio of solutions and services, and the Pro VC60000 has helped them expand this even further. Its versatility, performance and consistency, even on the FT's famous 45gsm salmon pink paper, allows it to take advantage of many market opportunities including that of newspaper production."

The Turenki printing site produces the FT and INYT newspapers for distribution in Finland. Some of the newspapers are sent to retailers, while others are distributed to hotels and companies such as Finnair. The newspapers are printed in the evening and overnight in Finland so readers receive newspapers hot off the press first thing in the morning.

Prediction becomes fact

When first installing the press, Saariluoma said, "I believe our clients will benefit, from day one, from higher print quality and a wider variety of substrates enabled by this new press. But in the long run, the greatest benefit for our end users and for us is the ability to produce new and innovative products that we are not producing today."

This is a prediction the €60m turnover and 250 employee-strong firm specialising in retail and publishing is seeing come true. So successful was the introduction of the Pro VC60000 that a second press was installed shortly after.

Hansaprint uses its two Pro VC60000 presses to also produce loyalty programme materials, direct mail, transactional mail and books, and Saariluoma predicts a significant shift of volumes to inkjet from both offset and toner printing.