Bridging the Gap

Educating its customers helps GS, Inc. span the valley between conception and finished product.

November 2008 By Chris Mc Loone

multipage

These days, the more you can offer your customers in house the better. By not outsourcing certain phases of the label printing process, such as foil stamping or embossing, you can reduce the time it takes to get your order to your customer. It also allows for some cost cutting, the savings from which you could pass onto your customer.

But, any label printer will tell you that no label is the same, no customer demand is the same, and few print runs are the same. Adding capabilities like faux embossing or foil stamping to your process can be tricky if you don’t want to make the investment in offline finishing machinery. One option, combination printing, allows printers to employ several effects using one press.

Combination printing allows package/label printers to print using flexo, screen, digital, or other printing processes, and employ stamping or embossing effects as well. Modularity is key—not every print job is the same, so the ability to use each process in whatever order the print job demands is paramount.

GS, Inc. (Pascoag, R.I.) decided to employ combination printing after it began producing labels for the health and beauty market around 2000.

A strategic move

GS, Inc., founded in 1987 by Bert and Nancy Mountford, is operated by their sons Jason and Josh. “We started out with a 2-color, 7˝ press,” says Jason Mountford. “Our main market was thermal transfer labels and display cards for the jewelry and hair goods industry.” He explains that Rhode Island was a major center in the jewelry industry so it provided GS with a large and varied customer base. The 1990s saw a decline of the local jewelry industry as more and more of those products were manufactured and packaged in Asia. “With the loss of some of our core business, we decided to pursue new markets in the food industry and move into higher quality labels,” says Mountford.

With the move came the company’s first 8-color press, a Nilpeter FA-2400, which arrived in 1996. “The Nilpeter gave us the ability to produce high-quality, multi-color labels and started our push toward widespread use of -4-color process in a number of jobs,” adds Mountford. As the jewelry customers practically vanished, GS grew the food industry segment of the business to the point where it is still the largest percentage of its sales today.