Grafiche Morbegnesi

The Challenge

Industry: Print Services Provider | Product: Pro1050 | Location: Italy

Grafiche Morbegnesi is located in Italy’s Sondrio province which is home to a wealth of premium wine and food producers. Local producers have a requirement for professional quality labels to help their products stand out from the crowd and depend on Grafiche Morbegnesi to provide this service. However, when fulfilling label printing requests, an external print supplier had to be used as Grafiche Morbegnesi lacked this capability in-house. This resulted in long lead times for the company’s customers.

One customer impacted by the long printing timescales was a large holiday farm that often requires higher print runs. With the lead times for label printing from the third-party print supplier sometimes up to a month, Grafiche Morbegnesi recognised the opportunity to take on the competition and open up a new revenue stream by printing in-house the designs it created. Not only would this enable the company to improve its service offering with faster delivery times and competitive prices, but Grafiche Morbegnesi realised it could go one step further if it could offer customers a wide choice of materials to print their labels on.

The quality of the labels supplied by the local print shop were quite standard and the variable information that enVie added using the thermal printer was of poor quality. Furthermore, enVie struggled to manage the stock of printed labels which were supplied in many different layouts. This resulted in wasted funds in the form of unused labels in the stock room as well as disposing of printed labels that are no longer required. 

In reaction to the COVID-19 pandemic, enVie, alongside various other organisations, launched the ‘Robin Food’ project to transform food surpluses into healthy sustainable foods that are made accessible to vulnerable people and families during the crisis. This created a greater and more urgent demand for labels.

The Solution

Grafiche Morbegnesi had been relying on an OKI A3 colour printer as its printer of choice for normal digital printing jobs, providing the company with extremely satisfactory professional quality results. The printer had proven easy to use and provided exceptional reliability, so when looking for a device to meet its label printing requirements, the company had to consider OKI.

At a trade fair, the company came across OKI’s Pro1050 label printer and was impressed by its performance and unique ability to achieve striking results by printing in 5 colours (CMYK+White). “There was no way we could overlook OKI when making our choice”, says Enzo Salvato, owner of Grafiche Morbegnesi. “Other devices on the market are limited by inkjet technology while the OKI device uses digital LED together with dry toner technology which provided a noticeably higher quality. Other devices also lacked the diverse media handling of OKI’s label printer which would be essential to Grafiche Morbegnesi’s service offering.”

The company booked a demonstration at OKI’s head office in Assago and were immediately won over by the Pro1050’s performance, diverse label media handling capability including paper and synthetic film, and its superior print quality. The cost of the Pro1050 was another factor behind Grafiche Morbegnesi’s decision, given that many of the inkjet solutions on the market cost significantly more.

“The Pro1050 has given us new capabilities that are allowing us to access new markets.”

Enzo Salvato, Owner, Grafiche Morbegnesi

The Benefits

When it came to purchasing and implementing the label printer, OKI’s appointed partner Finlogic was on hand to get the company’s label printing capabilities up and running as quickly and seamlessly as possible. “We received transparent quotes very quickly, which meant the purchasing process took no time at all,” says Salvato. Finlogic’s installation of OKI’s Pro1050 and die cutter took just two days to complete, allowing the Grafiche Morbegnesi team to get to grips with the new system and start producing orders.

Following the installation, the ease of use of OKI’s Pro1050 was the first obvious benefit. The team were able to operate the new printer with very little training, while the flexibility of the Pro1050, which can produce low volumes as well as thousands of labels in one print run, means the company can fulfil label orders of different sizes for clients both large and small. Large print runs that would have previously taken as long as a month using a third party print supplier can now be completed in just two days.

The longevity of the toner cartridges also impressed the team at Grafiche Morbegnesi. With as little as 10% toner left, a cartridge can produce another two to three thousand labels, helping to improve the profitability of the company margins. The speed at which Grafiche Morbegnesi receives new toner has exceeded its expectations too, with new cartridges arriving within just two days of ordering.

The Future

While it’s still early days for Grafiche Morbegnesi’s shift into label printing as part of its service offering, OKI’s Pro1050 has given the company confidence that the investment will be worthwhile. 

“We’ve only just started in this new line of business, but the initial results are already very promising,” says Salvato. The feedback from the company’s clients has been extremely positive, especially when it comes to the significant reduction in lead times and the vast improvement in label quality. “We’ve seen results first-hand, immediately receiving more orders”.

“The Pro1050 has given us new capabilities that are allowing us to access new markets,” says Salvato. Following the addition of the Pro1050, Grafiche Morbegnesi has been able to work with local producers’ associations which provide producers with a range of services including labelling their products. This means there is an opportunity for the company to profit from even larger order volumes. “We haven’t ruled out getting more label printers; as soon as our business requires, OKI will be our first choice,” Salvato concludes.

“We haven’t ruled out getting more label printers; as soon as our business requires, OKI will be our first choice.”

Enzo Salvato, Owner, Grafiche Morbegnesi