The North Bristol label printer's purchase marks the 10th Edale press the company has bought since it was founded in 1996.

Karl Jackson, production director at Kingfisher, said the new six-colour FL1 was a perfect machine to support the company’s current stable of presses.

He said: “Our business is diverse and growing rapidly, so we wanted to invest in another machine which could interchange with our existing presses.

“The FL1 Prime was perfect for sharing tooling, and as the die stations are the same, we can interchange between our FL3s and Prime.”

Kingfisher already has two six and eight-colour FL3 presses, which run at the same 200m/min speed as the Prime, but have a wider web at 430 or 510mm, and can run material up to 450 microns.

The FL1 Prime, which was installed in September 2021, instead runs a 350mm web, handling material up to 350 microns thick.

The installation was so successful for Kingfisher that it immediately decided to invest in another, which will be installed later in 2022 at the company's 930sqm site.

Jackson added: “We have a great relationship with Edale which spans many years. 

“For us, Edale found a gap in the market with an affordable, space saving, and efficient option that allowed us to customise as needed to suit our operation.”

Edale modified the FL1 Prime for Kingfisher by adding a turnbar to allow for printing on the reverse of the label, and hot air and UV dryers to help the machine run even faster.

Louise Bailey, business development manager at Edale, said: "Kingfisher has exacting standards in terms of their print quality, and they had a very clear vision of what they needed in terms of customising their FL1 Prime.

“We were very happy to work closely with them to meet their specific requirements.”