The 25-staff firm in Kettering, Northants, spent £112,000 on the kit and is producing synthetic labels for pharmaceutical and chemical companies, along with a wider range of water-based and UV labels.

Production supervisor Tony Spooner said the kit would run alongside an existing Edale E250S and could run at 100m a minute, though his team were running it at 65m.

"I was impressed with the build quality and operator friendliness," he said. "It gives us the added capability of doing UV rather than just water-based work. We are also going to look into the production of four-colour process work and over-laminating.

"Edale was the obvious choice for our next investment due to us already owning an Edale E250S. We knew we could trust Edale and liked the reliability of a British-made press. The Alpha has a compact footprint and is compatible with our existing E250S tooling.

AM Labels managing director Tony Mariani said: "The Alpha has opened up more doors for our existing clients and paved the way for a wider range of customers and challenges. I will be looking to expand in the future".

His 17-year-old company is ISO: 9001 certified and started out in business selling desktop printers before expanding into label manufacturing after acquiring Applied Labels in December 2008.