XDP moves to Canon as part of £175,000 kit spend

Xchurch Digital Print (XDP) has invested around £175,000 in new kit, including two Canon digital machines that the firm said will double its print efficiency.

The Christchurch, Dorset-based business took delivery of a Canon Océ VarioPrint 6250 Ultra+ last week to replace two rival machines.

A Canon imagePress C750 with the new oversized POD Deck Lite XL-A1 automated duplex long-sheet feeder is due to be installed next week.

Both machines have been bought direct from Canon UK for around £140,000 in total.

Managing director Robert Jupp said: “We were coming to the end of the lease for our Xerox kit. We went out and spoke to Ricoh, Canon and Xerox again, and Canon came up with the best offer for us and were the most proactive. In the end, its deal was too good to turn down.

“We saw the VarioPrint at Canon’s showroom a couple of weeks before we went up and saw the imagePress with the new POD Deck Lite at PrintWeekLive! in Coventry, which is where we did the deal.

“The long-sheet capability is something we’ve been looking at but didn’t have before. Canon having the auto duplex and the POD Deck Lite was a bit of a bonus for us because we do a lot of six-page work and with other machines you have to take them out and flip them over.”

The business also installed a Horizon BQ270V perfect binder around two months ago. Supplied by Intelligent Finishing Systems, the machine cost £32,000 and replaced an older BQ270 model.

At around the same time, it invested £3,000 in a Sawgrass Virtuoso SG800 dye-sublimation printer with various heat presses to enable it to move into personalised and promotional products.

Xchurch Digital Print rebranded last year to better reflect its location. Previously known as Digital Printed Image (DPI), the company also invested £60,000 on new finishing kit in 2017, including a Vivid Matrix 370 pneumatic laminator, a Multigraf Touchline CF375 creaser-folder and an Ideal 7260 guillotine.

The £350,000-turnover firm has six staff and serves customers in the financial and training sectors. It is looking to expand into wide-format and direct-to-garment printing later this year.