This new contract will see NWN Print, the only newspaper printer in Wales and one of the biggest supplying Wales and North-West England, continue to use Fujifilm’s second generation, high sensitivity, low chemistry Brillia PRO-VN2 plates. Bringing even more value to this investment, NWN Print has also installed two Krause LowChem BlueFin with Clean Process Kits – plate processors for chemical-reduced polymer printing plates and the first of their kind in the UK. Installed by Fujifilm partners DTP, these high class plate processors will enable NWN Print to dramatically reduce its energy costs and chemical waste – getting even more value out of its Fujifilm plates going forward.
Says NWN Press Operations Manager Mark Wall: “We’ve been delighted with Fujifilm’s service over the past ten years and with the consistently high quality of their products. With our contract up for renewal though, we looked closely at all their competitors’ products and costs so as to ensure we obtained the best possible deal. It is a tough market for newspaper printers at the moment, so price was obviously an important consideration, but to secure our future as a profitable business and set ourselves up for the next ten to fifteen years, we needed to consider the quality, reliability and service on offer from all suppliers.”
Ultimately, NWN Print decided that Fujifilm was best placed to take the business forward. “Fujifilm knows our business inside-out,” Wall continues. “They understand the challenges that we face as a newspaper printing business and they have the knowledge and expertise, as well as the products, to help us move forward.”
NWN Print is the contract newspaper printing, publishing and design division of NWN Media Ltd. With its own stable of one daily newspaper and twelve weeklies – and regular contract printing for major national papers – NWN Print is optimistic about its future and the future of newsprint more generally. “I know there’s been a lot of negative news lately about the newspaper printing industry,” says Wall. “But though it’s still a very challenging marketplace, we’re seeing evidence that the decline is tapering off and some papers are starting to see their circulation steady or even grow. Advertisers are waking up to some of the problems with online advertising and we’re confident that, done right, there is a profitable future in newsprint.”
Says Fujifilm UK Managing Director Keith Dalton: “We’ve been pleased to see our long-standing customer NWN Print thrive in a very difficult marketplace and we’re delighted to see them have the confidence to make this far-sighted investment in their future. We look forward to continuing our successful partnership for many years to come.”
