The Challenge

Industry: Self-adhesive labels | Product: Pro1050 | Location: Midrand, Gauteng, South Africa
Founded in March 2019, Talis Labels is a small family run business with five employees, including the Owner & Founder, Paul Stretton. After retiring from the construction industry, Paul was looking for a new business opportunity against the backdrop of a struggling economy with high unemployment and low growth. He opted to start up a specialist shortrun digital label supply company – Talis Labels - to service a variety of industries in niche markets.
Talis Labels partnered with NSI 4 Africa which placed them in an ideal position to take advantage of an opportunity to work with the Dutch brewing company Heineken. An important label project for them came up a month before a key rugby tournament was due to kick off in September 2019 in Japan. “A customer who was very pleased with our service recommended us for the Heineken project and our quick turnaround time and print quality sealed the deal for us” explains Paul Stretton, Owner & Founder of Talis Labels. Heineken, a key sponsor of the rugby tournament, initially commissioned 600 labels for a limited edition beer bottle to mark the event. The challenge Talis Labels faced was the ability to print a stunning transparent label that displayed well on the dark bottle. To do this Talis Labels needed to research a new label printing solution that could deliver on this requirement, within the deadline.
Talis Labels looked for an end-to-end label printing solution which was different from other CMYK only options that it had previously seen or used. It also wanted a printer with a small footprint to fit in the space available, so ideally a desktop printer rather than floor standing. The printer needed to be easy for all the team to use, and good for on-demand small run printing.