Award-winning ASL Print FX Gets Assist From Gallus

ASL Print FX, with three North American locations, has earned 83 technical awards over the last ten years – primarily for the high-end labels it produces for the wine and spirits market. To continuously earn such high honors requires the right “cocktail” of ingredients, which for ASL credits both its highly skilled operators and three Gallus presses installed at its Vaughn, Ontario location. Based on this previous success, ASL recently added a ten-color Gallus RCS 330 from Heidelberg to fuel growth and add versatility at its Napa, California plant.

Producing labels for the luxury market, which also includes health and beauty, ASL prides itself on “bringing its customers’ brand visions to life on the shelf.” Even prior to production, the team at ASL spends time with its customers prototyping labels to ensure what they are designing will be reflected in the final product. Thanks to the inline capabilities of the company’s ten-color and twelve-color Gallus RCS 330s and ten-color Gallus ECS 340 in Vaughn, the designers have been able to let their creativity shine. All three machines combine multiple printing methods including flexographic, screen, cold and hot foil – all inline.

“Gallus makes the best machines for the high-end clientele we serve,” says Stacy Daly, vice president of operations and co-owner of ASL Print FX. “Not only the embellishments they can produce inline, but they really have best-in-class registration. You can’t beat the quality.”

The creativity of the designers and the quality and embellishments of ASL Print FX’s labels have both played a major role in the company’s technical awards throughout the last decade. ASL is most proud of the “Best of Show” and “Best of the Best” awards it has received multiple times from TLMI in both North America and worldwide; the awards are only presented to one winner overall – beating out thousands of entries.

Based on the great success ASL had with its Gallus machines in Canada, the time was right to install a new Gallus RCS 330 in its Napa location to continue to fuel growth in that market. “If there’s a demand, we’re not afraid to invest,” said Daly. Redefining the future of label printing, the RCS supports multiple inline printing processes including offset, flexographic, screen, and hot foil stamping – all of which can be readily integrated for ultimate flexibility. While ASL was able to do these prior to installing the RCS, production is much more efficient as all of the processes are now done inline.

“The RCS gives us much more versatility,” explains Daly. “Since we can do everything inline, the increased efficiency helps our pricing and makes us much more competitive.”

Thanks to its high degree of automation, the RCS 330 achieves offset printing quality results, holding extremely tight registration, while maintaining the best possible performance efficiency. “Our primary goal is to be able to offer our customers great quality at a good price,” says Daly, “and the Gallus machines are helping us achieve that.”