Bishops Printers adds capacity with double Heidelberg buy

Bishops Printers is aiming to send out "a positive message" after buying two Heidelberg presses and taking on new staff.

The Speedmaster XL 75 and a Speedmaster 74 presses will be installed in the next two months and will bring the Portsmouth-based printer's Speedmaster unit tally to 52.

Bishop's latest investment comes off the back of a steady increase in turnover to £13m this financial year, up from £11.8m in the previous year.

Managing director Gareth Roberts said the investment would allow the company to do "more of what it does while doing it better".

He added: "We had exhausted every avenue of adding shifts and manning to increase productivity and realised that we had to add another press.

The XL 75-10-P will replace an existing ten-colour SM 74 and is expected to add four 24-hour days capacity to the printer each month. The SM 74-10-P - the second prong to its investment is "the perfect perfecting press for us", according to Roberts.

He said: "These two presses give us the ideal combination for our general commercial market, enabling us to easily handle a range of run lengths and boards, even up to carton stocks."

Bishops, which produces a range of work for clients in the sport, leisure, tourism and commercial sectors, is also taking on three new press operators to handle the new printing presses.

Roberts said: "The turbulence of the industry has been the most severe I've seen it in the past 15 years. It's a paradox but seeing certain companies go has really brought it all home.

"Over the past 12 months, we've taken on 18 extra staff – 16 of which were in the jobs market because of printers failing."

Last year, the Bishops spent £500,000 on new Heidelberg finishing equipment after winning contract work with two Barclays Premier League football clubs. Since that investment, it has also taken on seven extra staff to work in its bindery.