Dobruška / What does 60-employee C/A Grafica in Vigo, Spain, have in common with 15,000-strong Leo Papers in Heshan, China? According to Ed Bogaard, president of Eurographic Press, both demonstrate how western printers must square up to cut-price competition: by focusing on creativity and innovation as the key to defending market share.

“My brief is to motivate my staff to achieve our corporate goals,” says C/A Grafica president Cándido Alonso, who runs the company jointly with his son David. They have driven growth by combining imaginative products with superb technology and effective global marketing. To this end C/A Grafica set up three subsidiaries: Bahüer Design (product design), ACPAC (packaging development) and IGF (graphics). The firm’s creativity is illustrated daily by some 1.5 to 2 million items of packaging – including locomotives and aircraft made of paper and cardboard. One of its most recent products was a Sudoku game “made up of several pieces, with a lot of manipulation involved,” says Cándido Alonso.

This packaging morphs into a toy theatre once the contents have been removed

Means to an end

C/A Grafica’s printing and finishing equipment is merely “the means to an end”, the end being products that are second to none in quality and panache. Cartons for bottles of wine, printed in FM screens and finished using hybrid coatings, are a speciality. Even print veterans are astounded by the detail reproduction, backgrounds and gloss effects achieved.

Asked how C/A Grafica produces such high-grade jobs with hybrid inks, Cándido Alonso replies modestly: “Being able to achieve the desired effect with specific inks is a matter of knowing your printing aids and using the right coating. It’s also useful to factor in the basic paper white.” Like other printers who work with hybrid inks, C/A Grafica had a lot to learn. “And we are still not entirely satisfied – we’re aiming to achieve even better results!”

Catalogues, folding cartons, cars, books and anything else that can be made our of paper or board are all on display at C/A Grafica

Kitting up for waterless offset

The equipment that C/A Grafica has installed to attain its ambitious goals are a Rapida 105 universal eight-colour and a new-generation 18,000sph Rapida 105 six-colour coater press with waterless capability. The presses deliver to Bobst die-cutters and Müller Martini binding lines. The new Rapida 105 is a real virtuoso: “Printing at a speed of 18,000 sheets per hour means we can output a much higher volume of products in a much shorter time-frame,” explains Cándido Alonso. Since hybrid technology first hit the Spanish market it has been taken on board by some 40 print operations. C/A Grafica actively promotes the process among its customers so that they are fully aware of the value added it can deliver.

The most recent Rapida 105, which has been in operation for a year, is engineered for waterless offset

Value-added packaging

Whenever C/A Grafica creates new products it seeks to devise a second use for them – built-in recycling, as it were. One of the products the company displays, for example, is a CD box that can be transformed into a toy theatre. Others can be turned into paper and cardboard aircraft capable of flying at 200 kilometres per hour. “Even if they crash they don’t have to be dismantled like plastic models do,” says David Alonso. C/A Grafica specialises in printing and finishing products made of paper and board, often laminating them for greater rigidity.

One of the many amazing products produced using hybrid inks and coatings

What is the key to the company’s success? While others go bankrupt after losing work to Chinese printers or selling their products at below cost price because they are unable to calculate their overheads, C/A Grafica offers innovation, creativity and products that are among the best in the world. Which is why it has no need to fear competition from Chinese printers like Leo. “Customers come to us with a vague idea of what they want and leave with a product tailored precisely to their needs,” says David Alonso.