FDBusiness.com

For the ultimate personalised gift The Wiltshire Liqueur Company uses LX-Series Label Printers for their Bespoke Labelling Service.

Original Liqueurs – you can just drink them as they are or you can be as creative as Tiffinie Pride, director and chief experimenter of The Wiltshire Liqueur Company, and enjoy them in endless ways: cool and refreshing in cocktails, traditional with a twist in pudding recipes or exotic and dazzling in desserts. “While cooking at home that’s actually the best time to try and come up with new ideas and flavours,” says Tiffinie, who runs the family-run business from deep in the Wiltshire countryside. “We have set out to transform the way we think about liqueurs, encouraging new and experimental ideas about how to mix and cook with them.”

Using unusual fruits such as blood oranges grown on the side of Sicily’s Mount Etna and wild strawberries from the south of France, the liqueurs are produced with less sugar than some traditional recipes meaning that the fruits are the dominant flavour of the liqueurs.

The Original Liqueurs

Rather unique or let’s say unconventional is also the creation story of the company. The Original Liqueurs have been produced since 1993, back then only as a side businesses of the Hungerford firm and only a limited number of bottles of sloe gin and damson vodka each year as gifts for customers. “In 2012 my partner Christopher Robinson and I got the opportunity to buy the company and pursue our passion for spirits and create our own range of uniquely-flavoured liqueurs.”

Since then the company’s wild strawberry and blood orange liqueurs were launched and boosted the production from 1,500 bottles a year to 10,000.

While the taste of each Original Liqueur is unquestionably the heart of their success, you first eat – or in this case drink – with your eyes. Meaning the stylish labels (a mixture of traditionally English design with an original twist) that the company uses on their products, definitely help selling bottle for bottle. “Our inspiration came from quintessentially English designer William Morris and the vibrant Czech art nouveau painter Alphonse Mucha.”

Tiffinie, who was working as a freelance marketing specialist before running her own liqueur business, knew of the potential of labels and launched immediately The Wiltshire Liqueur Co’s Bespoke Labelling Service, offering personalised bottles of their delicious liqueurs with a name or special message on the label, great for birthdays, anniversaries or that “just because” present.

But how can The Wiltshire Liqueur Company produce these labels at no extra cost for customers without any set up fees or minimum order requirements?

The Solution

The solution presented itself at the London International Wine Fair and Distil at the booth of Primera Technology in May 2012. Primera, a manufacturer of label printing equipment, showed its LX-Series of colour label printers and visitors were able to see the machines in action. One of the visitors happened to be Tiffinie and was instantly intrigued. The LX-Series includes several desktop label printers, which utilise the latest in high-resolution inkjet technology to print brilliant, colourful labels for products, boxes and packaging. Printed labels can include photos, graphics, illustrations and text – even high-resolution linear or two-dimensional bar codes. So when designing a label, really the sky is the limit. Included with every LX Color Label Printer are two label design software applications: Bartender UltraLite and NiceLabel SE Primera Edition. Those applications offer extra features such as modified templates, variable data and any barcode type. But any other preferred design program can be used to print labels directly from the application they were designed in. Tiffinie and her co-workers create each personalised label in Adobe Photoshop and then print them.

Another advantage of Primera’s label printers is that labels can be printed when and where they are needed in just the quantities that are required at the moment. So there are literally no minimum order requirements, no plate or die charges, no obsolete label inventory or long lead times.

“85% of our orders require a personalised label,” says Tiffinie. “Rather than relying on a print company, we can now produce all our personalised labelling in house which means that we can turn around orders very quickly.”

LX810e Color Label Printer

The Wiltshire Liqueur Company first bought the LX810e Color Label Printer, which uses one colour cartridge and one black cartridge. They use the printer every day and the demand of personalised labels increased immensely. Therefore, a second printer – the LX900e Color Label Printer – was purchased in September 2015. LX900e incorporates the most advanced inkjet technology ever offered in a desktop label printer. Called Primera Imaging Perfection, this all-new printing technology delivers razor-sharp text, graphics and the most photo-realistic printing possible.

LX900e has individual inks for cyan, magenta, yellow and black, keeping operating costs low since only one colour at a time needs to be replaced. Besides the traditional photo-quality dye-based inks, the LX900e can also run with specially designed pigment inks, which offer far more stability against harsh conditions including water, chemicals, abrasion and exposure to long periods of UV light.

“During the Christmas season – our busiest – we produce between 100 and 150 labels a day. And without the LX printers we would not be able to offer our personalised labelling service. We dispatch within 24 hours of accepting an order.”

Tiffinie adds: “I love the fact that the labels never slip so you can set a large print run and leave it running. It is also fairly fast and always accurate.”

Both printers were purchased from Primera’s UK distributor Bannerbridge plc. “The after sales support and back up has been great from Bannerbridge. We order all our ink and labels from Bannerbridge and the support is brilliant, always helpful and fast.”

For further information contact Primera Technology Europe on Tel +49 (0)611 927770 or visit http://primeralabel.eu.