UK garment decorators were given the opportunity to see the new Kornit Avalanche Poly Pro DTG printer in action in the UK for the first time at the beginning of July when multi-brand distributor PenCarrie teamed up with Kornit and equipment and machinery supplier Amaya Sales UK, to hold a special three-day event at its distribution centre in Willand, Devon.
The event was aimed at large screen printing shops that are looking to make the move into high production, industrial digital printing, but also had plenty to appeal to smaller businesses contemplating lower cost garment decoration options.
Visitors were able to view demonstrations of both the Poly Pro, printing on polyester tees from Just Cool by AWDis and Sol’s, and the Avalanche HD6 (launched earlier this year) printing on cotton tees from Next Level Apparel and Tee Jays.
Stefanie Gross, senior marketing and events executive at PenCarrie, pointed out that as well as printing on the polyester tees, the Poly Pro was used to print the polyester hi-vis garments from Result and Yoko International that were worn by staff and visitors during the event.
Brendan Manghan, Kornit’s territory manager UK, confirmed that Kornit machines are an increasingly popular choice for workwear suppliers with the machines’ quick turnaround of workwear orders having special appeal. “We’ve installed four machines into workwear suppliers over the past four months,” he reported, adding that the ability to now print onto polyester would further open up this sector of the market.
Julian Wright, sales director of Kornit distributors Amaya Sales UK, added that the market is continuing to shift and print shops are being forced to adapt. He mentioned that screen printers are now looking to add “something different” and described the ink chemistry used by the Poly Pro, which allows curing at temperatures as low as 110°C, to be a “gamechanger”. Julian reported a steady flow of visitors throughout the three days and was kept busy fielding enquiries, especially with regard to financing an investment in a Kornit machine. His figures suggested that the weekly lease payment on a new machine would be covered by just two days’ production, with a return-on-investment period of 12 months or less, provided the customer had the level of business required to keep the machine in full production.
For those visitors whose business has yet to reach this level, Lewis Wotton, PenCarrie’s Academy co-ordinator, was demonstrating Polyprint TexJet desktop DTG printers, along with Melco embroidery equipment and a range of heat-applied decoration equipment and consumables, including Oki printers and Hotronix heat presses, in the PenCarrie Academy education and demonstration suite.
Visitors were also able to take a guided tour of PenCarrie’s recently extended 275,000 sq ft warehouse and view the distributor’s mid-year new product launches, including the latest styles from Next Level Apparel, Tee Jays and Henbury.
Oliver Ludtke, Kornit Digital’s director of marketing EMEA, gave a presentation on the second-day of the event during which he spelt out Kornit’s vision for a digital future. Oliver commented: “This event has been great in every respect. PenCarrie and their highly professional team provided a great venue and hospitality, our local partner Amaya did their part in providing local expertise, securing attendance of the right customers and following up on the contacts that were made. From a Kornit perspective we noticed that among garment decorators and resellers there is a great demand for professional printing solutions, and the Avalanche Poly Pro got great feedback, as the first clean, digital, industrial, scalable process for printing on polyester garments. We got a lot out of this, and so did the attendees!”
PenCarrie’s director of sales, marketing and customer service, Mike Symons reported that visitors had travelled from as far afield as Sheffield to attend the event and was especially pleased to have had the opportunity to show them the expanded PenCarrie facility. “The warehouse astounds everybody and visitors had the opportunity to see our picking operation in action for themselves. We’re proud of the facility and our industry partnerships and the more people that get to see it the better,” he said.
Videos from the open days, which were streamed live during the event, can be viewed on the PenCarrie Facebook page.
Oliver Ludtke, director of marketing EMEA at Kornit Digital, shares Kornit’s vision for the future of digital print with visitors to the PenCarrie 2019 open days
Demonstrating the capabilities of the Kornit Avalanche HD6 printers
