After almost half a century of doing things by the book, the Ramdutt family took a flexible leap of faith into packaging. And it seems to be paying handsome dividends—one particularly worthy of note recently being the Sunfoil oil 2-litre label, which had the Gold Pack Awards judges declaring it a splendid example of ‘enhanced flexographic print plate technology with extended colour gamut that significantly reduces ink and plate washup’.
‘Print has steadily declined since the invention of the iPad,’ explains Sanveer Ramdutt, director of Art Flexible Packaging. ‘The way we access our news is a far cry from that of the past. This prompted us to branch into flexibles to grow from our traditional base. Packaging and labelling will always be with us because people will not stop consuming food and products for the foreseeable future.’
And the company has just the right technology to capitalise on this enduring trend, with the recent installation of an impressive flexographic machine that has put its 13 litho presses somewhat in the shade.
The Soma Optima 880, supplied by Sabre Equipment and commissioned in October 2021, is allowing Art to colour the world of a growing number of customers looking for excellent quality and consumer appeal.
‘Through its extended colour gamut (ECG) capabilities, we have three additional colours – violet, orange, green – that enable us to replicate 95% of the Pantone palette,’ Sanveer points out. ‘The approach provides a virtually unlimited number of colours without changing the ink configuration of the press. Standardised ink set-up means savings in make-ready and ink costs.’
‘Highly-saturated colours make for more striking designs and there is no need to wash the machine when switching from one product to another, which gives a significant saving on cleaning fluids and ink,’ he emphasises.
Sabre Equipment’s technical and sales whiz Floors Coetzee
chats enthusiastically about the qualities of the Optima, among them the bounce-control software inside the servo motors that ensures complete print stability even at high speeds of up to 350m/min.
“There is also the S-mount for plate mounting. This extracts information and stores it on a chip inside the print sleeve. The unit is then removed and taken to the press where the chip is scanned, enabling the machine to automatically adjust all the tensions. Registration is always around 99%. Plate mounting takes about 45 seconds, while setting the register and impression produces almost zero metres set-up waste.
“The system is so sensitive it can detect the smallest bubble that may have formed underneath the double-sided tape so that this can be rectified in a few seconds before the job runs,” Floors adds.
“These features – complemented by a Lamiflex simplex solvent-less laminator and Pluto III slitter with integrated unwind unit – really place the machine far ahead of its rivals and take flexo printing beyond the quality heights previously associated only with gravure presses.”
“The machine is one thing, but to achieve the results we’re looking for demands impeccable process control, ink management and accuracy,” Sanveer stresses. “Every substrate or structure requires a meticulous trial to create a profile for plate production. We have done more than 20 trials and set up numerous profiles to cover almost any type of job that a customer may want. ECG is much more than just an investment in a piece of kit.
“Luckily, being relatively new to the business, we haven’t picked up any bad habits, but we’re definitely gaining knowledge all the time about the best way to do things.”
Yes, much has changed since 1969, when Gainchund Ramdutt established Art Printers, which evolved into a leading commercial print shop in Durban. The company has continued to benefit from the family’s staunch belief that warm and humble relationships with customers are the foundation for growth and prosperity.
In 2017, the late Maggs Ramdutt had the vision to expand into flexible packaging and, with his brother Venosh, handed over the reins to their sons Pranesh, Preshan and Sanveer. Thanks to Maggs’s vision, the team now seeks customer bonds in many attractive, new markets.
“There is a great deal of work out there and, given our technology, we are actually landing projects that were previously produced digitally,” Sanveer confirms. “So effectively we’re creating a market that has not existed before, which is very exciting.”
The Sunfoil label was the company’s first appearance at the Gold Pack Awards, but it won’t be the last, he insists. “We entered at the last minute to make sure we had a presence and because the label is technically complex. But with flexo printing developing constantly and the game-changing use of expanded gamut to open opportunities, we will have many more packs and labels to enter in future.
“We have numerous ideas for expansion and innovation, and our focus this year will be strongly on packaging technology, so we will be more visible and vocal than we have ever been,” Sanveer enthuses.
