Star Labels opens New production facility at New Mumbai for SPOT UV

'SPOT'ting a big pie, left untapped in the SPOT UV service, a newly set up printing house, Star Labels Pvt Ltd, has recently commenced production at its unit in New Mumbai with a state of the screen printing machines, pre press and post press equipment. The company has invested over Rs 10 million in infrastructure and equipment (spread over a 2,500 sqft site). Star Labels will also offer value added packaging material for garment and apparel industry (For eg. attractive saree boxes with creative design and  special effects), besides offering SPOT UV services to offset printers in and around New Mumbai/Mumbai.

Advantage offset printers
It’s an open secret that New Mumbai has become a new printing hub. Many big printers like TATA Press, Thomson Press, Silver Point, Noble Press (and many more) have their units here.  After a market survey, we came to the conclusion that the printers in this region is in dire need of support for SPOT UV and other print finish services.

“Offset printers can take benefit from the ‘specialties’ of screen process – UV spot varnishing and special effects. With so many variety colors and specialty inks available in the market, we can do lot of creative jobs and deliver fantastic prints to the customers,” notes Mr. Nirav Thakkar, Managing Director of Star Labels. “Offset printers can always make their customers feel good by offering something special. Offset printers can offer value added service such as spot UV and special effects on their customers print jobs such as brochures, special calendars, catelogues, annual reports, special publications, etc. This is possible at our advanced screen printing set up”, he adds. 

The infrastructure
The company has deployed one of the best screen printing technologies, an advanced 30” x 40” fully automatic STOP cylinder press with high speed and high accuracy (3000 impressions/hour) from Grafica. It has also deployed a semi automatic screen printing machine with auto take off system supported by Jet air / IR dryer chamber. To support its printing operations, the company has also deployed the entire pre press and post press set up. These include: Exposing unit, Pneumatic streaching clamps, Alluminium Tabular Frames, Emulsion Coating machine and a UV curing machine - all from Grafica Flextronica. The company has also invested in a Polar cutting machine for manufacturing labels and packaging products. It has employed a team of well trained manpower to run the production. “We believe we have the right equipment to provide novel creative finishing solutions to the printing industry” says Mr. Thakkar.

Business strategy
Star Labels is targetting on three markets. Under the brand ‘STAR LABELSCO’ it offers heat transfer tag-less labels; Spot UV services will be offered under the brand ‘STAR SPOT ON’ especially to Navi Mumbai printers; and ‘STAR ACCESSPROES’ is a brand created to catering to fancy / value added boxes especially to the textile (saree) and jewllery market.

The Management
Based on the professional experience of Mr. Mehul Shah (Textile engineer and Star Label’s Director) and Mr. Nirav Thakkar (a printing professional with 20 year experience - Managing Director), the company has succeeded in creating its own ‘proprietary formula’ to offer such novel solution to Indian market (garments).

Besides SPOT UV service, the company has also set up a unit for producing tag less labels. Ink used in these transfer labels is FDA approved  and there is no PVC, phthalate & Lead in the ink. Therefore, it is good for skin contact, absolutely non itchy feeling, and very low risk of counterfeiting. “We are now fully equipped to offer heat transfer labels solution especially for neck label application, which are unique in its kind,” says Mr. Nirav Thakkar, Star Label’s Managing Director.