Killer app: St Austell prepares Eden guide for German influx

The Germans are coming. Specifically, they’re coming to the Eden Project, Cornwall, to enjoy the wondrous natural sights of the world’s largest indoor rainforest.

To accommodate this new demographic of visitors, the Project elected to translate its best-selling guidebook into their native language – and it had an equally eco-minded printer in mind for the job.

What was produced?

Nearby St Austell Printing Company was commissioned to produce a run of 3,000 A5, full-colour, 60pp booklets. They were perfect-bound and made use of sustainable vegetable-based inks printed onto FSC-certified paper stocks from Antalis – 130gsm Claro FSC Silk for the text and 250gsm Print Speed FSC for the cover.

What did the job entail?

A five-colour B2 Heidelberg Speedmaster XL 75 with coater was used for the text pages, making use of Prinect Axis Control for colour measurement. The covers were printed CMYK on a four-colour SRA1 RMGT 9-series with coater – described by St Austell as “one of the most environmentally friendly lithographic presses available” with LED-UV instant drying inks from Toyo.

Binding was completed on a Wohlenberg City 6000e 16-station binder.

What challenges were overcome?

The Eden Project’s commission was one of the first projects carried out by St Austell since installing its £100,000, 441-panel rooftop solar array on its 2,800sqm base in August – generating 130,000kWh of energy per year and saving around 45 tonnes of carbon per year.

It was key to St Austell that the process went ahead seamlessly, with no interruption in the flow of work from the panels’ installation to maintain its proud reputation as a green leader in UK print.

Marketing manager Matt Bunt said: “When the system was being installed they didn’t need to isolate any power. There was no downtime, and now it’s up and running everything runs as it used to. You’d never know that a significant amount of our power was generated by solar. Sustainability is massively important. In fact, it’s at the core
of our business.”

What was the feedback?

Eden Project publications manager Rob Lowe said: “The Eden Project has worked with like-minded local printers including St Austell Printing Co for many years. 

“St Austell’s approach to short-run, high-quality publications made them an obvious choice when it came to printing the German translation of our best-selling guidebook. We look forward to working with them on other publications in the future.”


Do you have a Killer App? We are interested in special, difficult or simply fabulous print jobs. Contact Rhys Handley on 020 7501 6388 or rhys.handley@markallengroup.com.