SPGPrints Too Focuses On Sustainability At ITMA Stall

Just as the 2023 edition of ITMA focused on sustainability, the core focus of Netherlands headquartered SPGPrints stall at ITMA 2023, too was on sustainability.

“Our core focus at this exhibition is sustainability, and so we have used reusable boards to build our stall. We will reuse the boards of this stall as well as curtains to build the walls or floors of our stalls at other exhibitions,” Mr Ruud Zantman, Chief Commercial Officer at SPGPrints said, while exclusively speaking with Textile Insights.

SPG Prints, which was earlier known as Stork Prints, has been in business since 75 years and in the 1960’s was inventor of the Rotary Textile Printer. Then the company entered the Digital Textile Printing Segment, but continues to produce Rotary Printers, as still, 65 percent of all textile printing continues to be done on Rotary Printers.

“At ITMA 2023, we have introduced a Screen in the Rotary Printer, which reduces the Paste consumption by around 22 percent. This is a huge amount of saving for the textile mill,” he added

In Digital Textile Printing, SPGPrints is showing the Magnolia, which is one of its top models.

“In a digital printer, there are millions of droplets jetted into the fabric per second and these nozzles in the printer also clog. But, the Magnolia printer scans the results of printing, and if there is a very fine line due to a nozzle clog, the software in the printer scans and pin points the deficiency and corrects the mistakes through other nozzles,” Mr Zantman explained.

The company is also showing a Screen Engraver. The Rotary Screen when it is manufactured is blank or is an open mesh. The screen can go through one of the two technologies, namely Engraving and Exposure, before it can actually be used on the printer.

In the Exposure technique, the screen is covered with lacquer after which laser exposure is used to harden the negative of the image. Once that is done, the positive is washed off, which creates undesirable waste water.

“In addition to offering this Exposure technique, SPGPrints is the only supplier that also offers the Engraving technique. In the Engraving process, the screen is also covered with lacquer. But in this case, the lacquer is first fully hardened after which the engraving laser technique removes the positive of the image. This doesn’t require the use of water and leaves very little waste,” he informed.

At this ITMA, SPGPrints has not installed running machines. By not doing so, the company wants to save hundreds of metres of fabrics from being wasted as the digitally printed fabric also needs a post treatment process, and so the company consciously decided to avoid this huge waste of fabrics

“Although customers like to see a machine in operation, in the end their decision making is largely based on the combination of their own fabric and their own design in combination with a machine. Moreover, it is not humanly possible to keep varieties of fabrics at the stall,” he stated.

To make our products even more applicable, SPGPrints is now offering a Rotary Screen Printer with a so called universal repeat, which allows its customers to use a screen with different repeats in one and the same machine.

“We are very happy with the attendance of buyers to our ITMA stall and are happier with the quality of buyers who visited our stall. We have also closed a few deals and so are fully contented with the results of our participation at ITMA 2023,” Mr Zantman concluded by saying.