The Pensord Group brings case binding in-house

The Pensord Group are delighted to announce the purchase and successful installation of case binding equipment as it looks to grow its premium books division, Cambrian Printers.

A Zechini Roby Junior 2 case maker, Zechini X casing-in line, and Zechini X Case Forming machine were delivered to the Group’s manufacturing plant in Blackwood at the end of 2021.

Following an extensive in-house training programme, the machines are now fully operational and producing high quality case bound books for its growing client base.

This investment signals a mark of intent from The Pensord Group to provide book publishers with a complete production solution under one roof, as well as the potential to add value to existing publications currently in softback format.

According to Group Sales Director, Richard Jones, the demand and interest from clients for hardback books actually increased during Covid times compared to previous years.

“Whilst Covid presented our business with unprecedented challenges, one of the success stories over the past couple of years has been books”, said Jones.

“We have seen a growing demand from publishers for high quality hardback production in the UK. It is clear that there is a real desire from publishers, big and small, to keep as much book production in the UK as possible post-Brexit. This in turn led us to delivering record numbers for books in 2021 despite the obvious challenges in the marketplace”, he added.

Cambrian Printers had been offering case binding for many years as an outsourced process, and previously had a separate bookbinding company operating on-site at their former manufacturing plant in Aberystwyth.

Karl Gater, Group Managing Director, said that when it started to consider bringing the process fully in-house, it would be targeted towards smaller print runs.

“The business has been focussed on short run, high quality, multi-page colour work for many years. Books are in Cambrian’s DNA and we have great experience of producing bespoke publications, and with that we can offer the control and confidence that always comes with working with Cambrian”, he said.

This latest investment not only increases its in-house capabilities from a production perspective, but also coincides with the imminent launch of an exciting new digital publishing platform for publishers.

Cambrian will be on focusing on runs from 100 up to 5,000 copies, in order to best utilise the fast make-readies and lower set up costs that comes with Zechini technology. There has already been strong interest from existing clients publishers in producing a split run of both paperback and hardback copies of the same publication, at the same time.

“These are still very challenging times for the print industry with materials and energy costs at all-time high. Now more than ever it’s more important we are able to offer a complete range of services to our clients, to help enable them to stay one step ahead of the competition and add value to their products where possible”, Gater stated.

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