Kuresa | 51Kuresa makes move to digital technology with DurstThe leading Peruvian converter has installed its frst digital press – its frst investment outside of letterpress technology in more than 20 years. James Quirk reports uresa, Peru’s leading label converter, has installed a Durst Tau 330 RSC inkjet press – not only its frst piece of digital printing equipment but the frst non-letterpress machine it Khas added to its arsenal in more than two decades.The Tau RSC inkjet press – the frst of its kind installed by Durst in Peru – has a 330mm web width and can print seven colors (CMYK plus white, orange and violet) at 1,200 DPI. It runs at 80m/min, with that speed reduced to 52m/min when printing white. Kuresa CEO Jaime Yoshiyama is enthused by the possibilities brought by the company’s frst foray into digital printing. ‘The investment in the Durst Tau RSC inkjet press will add a new dimension to our offering,’ he says. ‘It can print both short and long runs at high speed and with excellent quality. It will increase the options we can provide to our clients, as well as allow us to target L-R: Fernando Montedoro, sales manager, and Jaime Yoshiyama, new end-user markets and produce new products such as shrink CEO, with the new Durst Tau RSC inkjet press – the frst in Perusleeves, among others.’For Durst, the installation further vindicates recent efforts to “The investment in the Durst Tau increase its presence in countries outside of Latin America’s two largest markets – Brazil and Mexico – and refects rising interest RSC inkjet press will add a new from the region’s label converters in a new generation of inkjet technology which increasingly can compete with fexography in dimension to our offering”terms of speed and productivity (see boxout).‘There’s no question that Kuresa is a hugely important reference Rotofex machines.point in the industry, and was one of the frst companies we The company became synonymous with high-quality letterpress contacted when we began this process,’ says Alejandro Ortiz, printing, winning Finat’s Best Rotary Letterpress Printing Award for who covers the Latin American region for Durst outside of Brazil four consecutive years between 2007 and 2010, and establishing and Mexico. ‘We are very proud to have them as a client and are itself as one of the leading label producers in Latin America.sure that we will have a valuable relationship into the future. The Kuresa invested 25 million USD in a new 23,000sqm facility Tau RSC inkjet press gives Kuresa great versatility to optimally inaugurated in 2011, which featured the addition of a new adhesive meet all the needs of its clients in terms of job sizes, variability of coating machine from German manufacturer Olbrich – the information and time to market.’ company’s largest ever single investment at 9.5 million USD. This beneftted both the adhesive tape and label printing operations, History with the company now able to produce its own labelstock. Among Kuresa was founded in the Peruvian capital of Lima in 1965 the guests at the ribbon-cutting ceremony were Salomón Lerner as a producer of adhesive tapes, which continues to represent Ghitis, Prime Minister of Peru at the time, and various members of 64 percent of its business. Since the mid-1980s, it has been his government.the exclusive distributor in Peru and Colombia for Pilot, the Today, Kuresa is one of the few large-scale producers of adhesive Japanese brand of writing instruments, which accounts for a tapes in South America. Its scope includes adhesive design and further 21 percent. formulation, coating both waterborne and solvent-based adhesives, The remaining 15 percent of revenue comes from self-adhesive converting them into fnished rolls, and packing them. Production, labels, which the company began printing in 1998 with the which takes place on world-class machinery from Switzerland, installation of a fexo press from Italian manufacturer Ecofex. Germany and Italy, is at 65 percent of capacity. Letterpress quickly became Kuresa’s core label printing technology, ‘There is plenty of room to grow with our existing infrastructure,’ however, with the installations of presses from Swiss manufacturer says Yoshiyama. The company produces general-purpose and Ilma in 2000 and 2002. specialty masking tapes, acetate-based tapes, double-sided tapes, Ilma, founded by former employees of Gallus, stopped and heavy-duty EPVC packaging tapes, among others.manufacturing the presses after around 50 installations though In the label division, meanwhile, running two shifts six days parts continue to be available on the market. a week, the company produces four million square meters of Kuresa bought further Ilma machines over the coming years. self-adhesive labels per year. Each of the presses has fexo, silkscreen, reverse printing and Ninety percent of production serves the local market, with the hot and cold stamping capabilities, and can print variable data remainder exported to Colombia, Ecuador and Central America. for promotional applications. They are equipped with inspection Forty percent of the company’s production is for the cosmetics systems from BST, web cleaning equipment from Teknek and and personal care market; 34 percent goes to food and beverage; Kelva, corona treatment and lamination. Proofng and mounting 18 percent to household goods; 6 percent is for pharmaceutical equipment come from Heaford while fnishing is handled by applications, with the remainder divided between the agricultural Oct - Dec 2023