How a switch to flexo helped save Premier Foods thousands on their brands

With over a dozen brands under their care, Premier Foods has stood the test of time, upholding the legacy of quality, family-friendly brands across the UK.

Over time, they’ve only grown stronger, reaching international shelves in Ireland and Australia, with plans for several markets, in North America and Europe.

Pulse meets Premier

During our time together, Premier Foods has only ever known Pulse to be the packaging agency with outstanding print knowledge and some serious problem-solving skills.

And with Kodak’s NX HD print technology and Elastomer ITR continuous sleeves in our possession, Premier Foods asked us to challenge them with their continuous print sleeves to achieve the same flexo print results as is possible to gravure, but at a much cheaper cost to the brand.

High in quality, high in price

Due to the quality that gravure is known for, Premier Foods saw little reason to find an alternative.

Gravure print was a great solution for Premier Foods long standing products with millions upon millions of printed units, but not so good for the fast moving seasonal products that have regular updates.

With the cost of Gravure cylinders in the region of £400 – £600 each, this becomes a costly print process across large ranges.

Thankfully we had the perfect solution.

‘Pulse provided a high standard of technical expertise’

Costly printing processes are a thing of the past

Premier Foods selected several SKUs in the range and, subject to the trials being a success, would move these from Europe to the UK.

Pulse worked closely with Premier Foods’ UK print supplier to perform print trials and benchmark the results.

Our aim – to ensure the flexo print could hold up to the same standard, if not better than the existing gravure print, while maintaining consistency across the range and other print processes.

A central colour standard was set using a Fogra 39L colour profile. Once the trial colour data had been captured from the press, existing product shots were retouched using the flexo profile and matching back to the central colour standard for consistency.

Many would argue, why not match the gravure samples? At Pulse, we aim for perfection. That’s why we didn’t want to start off on the wrong foot by using a print sample that could be 2 delta E away from the original target it was trying to match. By taking it back to the original standard, we had a true starting point that allowed us to consider all print processes, and not just gravure to flexo.

With Kodak NX HD plates and elastomer ITR continuous sleeves at our fingertips, we didn’t just have right technology – we also achieved the huge cost reductions Premier Foods were looking for compared to gravure.

And there you have it. Money saved. No quality compromised. The print was considered a massive success and signed off by the brand.

Result

This saved Premier Foods more than 58% on print media materials as well as on delivery of printed material from the EU to the UK.

Don’t just take our word for it

‘Pulse provided a high standard of technical expertise to help this cost-saving initiative become a success. They also project managed every part of the process and the individuals feeding into it to keep everything on track.’

‘Two things really stood out for us. One – the Pulse team really did take the hassle out of the technical management of the project, and the second was seeing the final result pass on the press with a fantastic final result.’

‘This project also allowed us to improve our sustainability by reducing our delivery CO2 footprint and reducing costs across several SKUs allowing us to reinvest the savings for increased marketing or future product development.’

‘It was extremely satisfying to set this idea rolling and be supported by a great team to produce a great result.’
Dave Corf - Cadbury Project Manager