Printing officially started on 1 July 2006, eight months after construction began. However, as of 1 May this year, all four of the Prinovis presses were running at full capacity, producing 170,000 tonnes of print per year.

Managing director Richard Gray said: "We have made substantial moves forward in terms of reliability and time sensitivity.

"We have moved from being a project to an operation, and we are starting to leverage what we've been doing here."

The 65,000sqm custom-built facility employs 430 staff and houses four KBA rotogravure presses, one 2.75m and three 4.32m.

Clients include OK! Magazine, the Argos and Woolworths catalogues, and the Sunday Times package: Style, Culture and the Sunday Times Magazine.

In March 2007, former Prinovis Liverpool managing director Bob Robinson announced he would be leaving later in the year to move his family back to the United States.

Gray said that any change in management created a slight disturbance, but things have been "moving forward and going smoothly".

Prinovis Liverpool's location is also a "significant opportunity" as it means the business is closer to its customers, he said.

"It is a genuinely tough marketplace, with massive overcapacity in mainline Europe. Pricing has been massively subdued and it is affecting the whole printing sector."

However, gravure print has "significant advantages" for the environment, according to Gray.

The site has a combined heat and power station, which generates steam and electricity and has been patented by Prinovis.

"Fortunately, we're a modern facility and the site is designed around the gravure process.

"We can use paper more efficiently, have a higher trim efficiency and ink is recycled as part of the process," he added.