Cornish Liquids

The Challenge

Industry: E-Liquids | Product: Pro1050 | Location: Redruth, Cornwall, UK

Cornish Liquids was founded in 2015 by CEO Kenny Couch, and is a manufacturer, wholesaler and retailer of the E-liquids that fuel E-cigarettes. They supply their own brands of E-liquids to their shops and other retailers, they also offer white-label E-liquid manufacturing with custom label designs. The company began with a base range of 15 flavours of E-Liquids, but now stock the latest vaping mods, tanks and accessories, as well as a large range of E-liquids from other respected E-liquid manufacturers. Cornish Liquids currently has a staff of twelve and three outlets in Cornwall, located in Redruth, Penzance and Penryn.

Cornish Liquids was using a printer from a different manufacturer for everyday labelling, but this lacked the capacity to print white and achieve the foil-effect labelling that was required. Silver PolyPropylene labels are available for this printer, however, as it doesn’t print in white, Cornish Liquids was limited on design for its own product labelling, as well as its white-label clients’ products. Plus, the cost of buying in pre-printed labels in this form was relatively expensive and involved considerable minimum order quantities.

Cornish Liquids’ Chief Executive Officer Kenny Couch explains: “The printers are used internally for our products and our clients’ products. We wanted to achieve better pricing and variety for ourselves and our white-label customers with the ability to say, “Yes, we can do that!”, when asked about speciality labels.”

The Solution

OKI’s Pro1050, 5 Colour Label Printer was the only product that Cornish Liquids really considered due to its offering and abilities. “It seemed the perfect fit” said Kenny Couch. Using digital LED together with dry toner technology, the Pro1050 offers a unique fifth colour or ‘CMYK+1’ option, allowing for greater flexibility in label design and printing. Plus, printing on transparent or coloured label media is made straightforward by printing an opaque white background under the CMYK image.

Kenny Couch says that his company “wanted the freedom to design without restriction with the ability to produce short runs of labels without the high cost of outsourcing speciality labels.”

With help from the team at AM Labels, an authorised OKI partner, Cornish Liquids could finally print and run labels on the Pro1050. Kenny Couch explained “There was a steep learning curve with not only the way artwork is produced to achieve some of the design effects on the labels we wanted, but also the capabilities of the machine itself adopting and implementing different methods compared to regular label printing. This was an opportunity for us and is now second nature when approaching any project requiring the OKI Label Printer.”

The Partner

AM Labels, a partner of OKI Europe, assisted throughout the purchase and setup. Couch was impressed: “We worked closely with Marc Smith and Brendon Bass as they resolved questions that inevitably arise when starting to use new equipment. Marc has been in constant contact with us and has helped direct questions to the right people for a solution.”

The Benefits

The purchase of the OKI printer has brought new business opportunities for Cornish Liquids, as they can now produce any kind of label a customer might consider. They offer more than just a standard label on a bottle and produce products that their clients want or even help to improve the client’s initial design. Using OKI’s Pro1050 label printer with CMYK+ white, labels can be printed on clear, coloured and metallic effect synthetics, also coloured and textured papers, giving outstanding print quality across a wide range of media types.

There are also cost benefits for Cornish Liquids, as it can now tackle jobs in-house that would previously have been passed onto a third party. The days of having to outsource printing with large minimum order quantities are over.

Production times have also decreased, according to Couch: “We do not have to wait for outsourced labels and can provide test prints to ensure customer satisfaction.” Time has been saved from design through to final product with the ability to test print and adapt design work for products. This kind of process was not possible when buying in labels from an external print company and it allows the company to tailor products quickly and precisely to customer specifications.

“Simply put, the freedom to print what we like when we like is the biggest benefit of all. Being able to say “Yes” to our customers. The fear of wait times – or even if we will achieve the desired effect – with a third-party print company has been negated as we can test print at a relatively small cost to a project, making it more profitable.”

The Future

Kenny Couch is optimistic saying “We can offer so much more with the OKI Label Printer in place, and for our customers we have become a “One Stop” solution with time savings over competitors.”