QPrint Osona expands offering to perfumery and beauty market with Roland UV printer

Qprint Osona has made the leap to digital printing with spectacular results, expanding its portfolio beyond its typical work of perfumery and cosmetics packaging graphics. 

Already a specialist in screen and pad printing, Spain-based Qprint Osona added a Roland VersaUV LEF-300 digital UV flatbed printer to its site in 2017. While 80 per cent of its business remains in the make-up and perfume market, the VersaUV's ability to print directly onto a vast array of materials and items means Qprint Osona now offers personalised control panels, printed T-shirts, water bottles, scarves, mugs and much more.

As well as the totally new products, the business, founded in 2001, is now offering exciting extra applications to its customers in the beauty sector, combining digital and traditional printing techniques. Packaging prototypes can be made really special, for example, with the addition of embossing and textures – effects easy to achieve using the VersaUV LEF-300's ECO-UV clear ink and primer.

But it's not all about looking pretty, as Managing Director Jordi Soler explains. "Clients in the cosmetic sector are very demanding," he says. "They need to perform tests and quality checks to evaluate whether the packaging complies with their expectations in terms of quality, toughness and reliability."

Meeting these demands is also easier with digital printing technology compared to screen printing (also known as serigraphy) or pad printing (tampography), thanks to its greater stability.

"With serigraphy, spending 16 hours printing means that external conditions such as temperature and humidity have an impact on the prints made, whereas with digital printing this doesn't happen," says the owner. 

Qprint Osona has combined the VersaUV's high speeds, variable print runs, material versatility and personalisation potential to find a valuable niche within the cosmetics market. 

"The application that has brought us most success is that of printing custom lids. We personalise lids for the cosmetic sector, as well as for perfumes, creams, etc," says Jordi, who oversees a production volume of 5,000 to 17,000 caps a day – with an increase to 100,000 planned for the future. 

In total, 20 per cent of Qprint Osona's turnover is the result of the new VersaUV LEF. Jordi adds: "We compared different market-leading printers, and it was the quality and technical support offered by Roland DG that won us over. I already knew about the reliability of the brand, after having worked with a Roland CAMM-1 series vinyl cutter for more than 15 years."

Click here to find out more about QPrint Osona.