Color Management in a “Jiffy”
C&S Carton revamped its prepress and press technology to provide color consistency that sells the product.
November 2007 by Jean-Marie Hershey
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Brand recognition and integrity depend on packaging. The need for faster makeready, on-time delivery, and reductions in cost and waste places a premium on predictable results and comparable quality independent of location, substrate, or printing process. The primary goal of color management, therefore, is to reproduce predictable, repeatable, consistent color across a range of devices and media from the time a file enters the workflow until it is reproduced on press. Because proof, plate, and print must deliver identical results, color management touches every part of the print or packaging workflow. As such, it relies on a range of tools including calibration devices, prepress software, on-press color monitoring, and other methods for controlling color.
C&S Carton in Marshall, Mich., the printing division of Chelsea Milling Company, a vertically integrated, fourth-generation food manufacturer, recently invested in one such tool—a digital color control system by EPG (Essex Products Group) that enables user-friendly ink key adjustments from a central ink desk to control color, speed makeready, and reduce waste.
Chelsea Milling Company, Chelsea, Mich., has been selling Jiffy prepared baking mixes since 1930. It has never advertised to consumers, relying instead on its core principles of providing quality and value to its customers, as well as brand awareness of the “little blue boxes” that hold the Jiffy mixes. When the time came to revamp the graphics on the blue box, the company replaced an aging 5-color press with a 6-color 77˝ Harris, equipped with the EPG KeyColor system.
“We were running a 5-color 77˝ Harris from 1970 until about two years ago,” says Don Stephan, plant manager, C&S Carton. “It had cloth dampeners and was badly in need of major repair. When we went to proof the new graphics on our shells, the owner realized we couldn’t reach the color quality (the brightness of the red on the flag) that he wanted to achieve. So we replaced the older press with another 77˝ Harris—a 6-color this time—and upgraded it with the EPG system and Dahlgren dampeners.”
Chelsea Milling Company stores wheat, mills it into flour, and uses it exclusively for its own prepared mixes. The company created C&S Carton in 1970 to help control the quality and cost of the cardboard shells that encase the growing Jiffy brand product line, which now includes 24 different prepared mixes. C&S prints the shells for every one of them.
C&S’s purchase of the 6-color Harris with the EPG system was a direct result of management’s decision to revamp the graphics on the Jiffy box. The team was looking for a fresher, more modern and livelier look, without abandoning the lineage of the Jiffy brand franchise.
C&S Carton in Marshall, Mich., the printing division of Chelsea Milling Company, a vertically integrated, fourth-generation food manufacturer, recently invested in one such tool—a digital color control system by EPG (Essex Products Group) that enables user-friendly ink key adjustments from a central ink desk to control color, speed makeready, and reduce waste.
Chelsea Milling Company, Chelsea, Mich., has been selling Jiffy prepared baking mixes since 1930. It has never advertised to consumers, relying instead on its core principles of providing quality and value to its customers, as well as brand awareness of the “little blue boxes” that hold the Jiffy mixes. When the time came to revamp the graphics on the blue box, the company replaced an aging 5-color press with a 6-color 77˝ Harris, equipped with the EPG KeyColor system.
“We were running a 5-color 77˝ Harris from 1970 until about two years ago,” says Don Stephan, plant manager, C&S Carton. “It had cloth dampeners and was badly in need of major repair. When we went to proof the new graphics on our shells, the owner realized we couldn’t reach the color quality (the brightness of the red on the flag) that he wanted to achieve. So we replaced the older press with another 77˝ Harris—a 6-color this time—and upgraded it with the EPG system and Dahlgren dampeners.”
Chelsea Milling Company stores wheat, mills it into flour, and uses it exclusively for its own prepared mixes. The company created C&S Carton in 1970 to help control the quality and cost of the cardboard shells that encase the growing Jiffy brand product line, which now includes 24 different prepared mixes. C&S prints the shells for every one of them.
C&S’s purchase of the 6-color Harris with the EPG system was a direct result of management’s decision to revamp the graphics on the Jiffy box. The team was looking for a fresher, more modern and livelier look, without abandoning the lineage of the Jiffy brand franchise.
Companies Mentioned:
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