Acorn Labels

The freezing December weather didn’t stop the Acorn labels team gracing the hallowed turf of Cambridge United’s, Abbey Stadium last Saturday. The Acorn line up included Barry Arliss, Jon Peckham, Sam Heneker and David Bullen, who were invited as guests and match day sponsors.

Acorn were given a special mention in the programme which read;

“Thank you to today’s match sponsors, Acorn Labels, it is fantastic to have them with us this afternoon. Established in 1994, Acorn are now recognised as print and packaging specialists having broadened their production capability in 2008. They believe in traditional values, providing excellent customer care and cost effective solutions.”

Despite the game ending goalless, Barry Arliss and co enjoyed watching the League 2 clubs scrap for points. They further found it exciting to walk on the pitch and soak in the ‘Amber Army,’ atmosphere. Jon shared his experience on Instagram;

“It’s not every day you get to go out on to the #cambridgeunited #footballpitch in front of a lot of people. Big thank you to @acornlabels for a fantastic afternoon!!”

Acorn were given the opportunity to name the man of the match. Sam Heneker commented on why he chose George Maris;

“He worked tirelessly in midfield, persevering against the atrocious conditions. Maris was unlucky not to provide an opening Cambridge United goal.”

The partnership between Acorn and Cambridge United proved mutually beneficial. The publicity gained through the programme, photos and announcements, put Acorn on the map and encourages people to support their local businesses. Furthermore, without the sponsorship of company’s like Acorn, the football club would be unable to continue their valuable work in the ‘Cambridge United Community Trust,’ aiding in education, health and local charities. 

The Commercial team at Cambridge United shared their gratitude after the game;

“We thank you for your continued support and do hope you had a most memorable day with us and look forward to welcoming you to the Abbey Stadium again very soon.”

Blog by Samuel Eyre

For many years, Acorn has built and maintained a strong working relationship with Daco Solutions. Their high quality equipment has aided manufacturing and recently, production manager Sam Heneker, attended Labelexpo Europe with the incentive of purchasing a new addition.

Sam made a decision to move to a 430mm web width and existing rewinding equipment had a maximum web width of 350mm. Fortunately, Daco was able to offer a solution and provide the special measurements needed.

Sam Heneker comments “Once we had made the decision to go with a 430mm web width we had to look at the finishing options available.  All of our finishing and die cutting equipment is from Daco Solutions as well as the Daco DF350SR semi-rotary for finishing labels from our Domino N610i inkjet press.  We like the simplicity of the Daco 3 spindle semi-auto turrets but they were only made in 250 & 350 web widths.  I’ve always found Daco to be able to build what we need and persuaded them to produce a 430mm (17”) version.

Mark Laurence comments ‘It’s great to work closely with our clients and now manufacture the Daco PLR430 to suit the 430 (17”) web which is becoming more common with press manufacturers such as Edale and Focus Label Machinery.  Acorn has now purchased 15 machines from Daco Solutions and it’s great to see that they are continuing to invest in equipment. “

Blog by Samuel Eyre and Mark Laurence 

In early September a new addition to the Acorn team arrived in the form of Sam, who took up the role of Sales Coordinator. A graduate of De Montfort University Leicester, he moved back to his home town St Ives in search of full time work. As Sam developed through training he made a positive impact at Acorn, bringing a fresh outlook on proceedings. Not only has he been able to support our sales department but managed to rehabilitate our social media. As an avid user of platforms, Twitter, Instagram, LinkedIn and Facebook, Sam implemented a strategy to help us reach higher levels of engagement with customers and stakeholders. His endeavour has allowed an increase in followers and enabled us to share Acorn news to a wider audience. An example was demonstrated by our client Maypole Pork. They kindly ‘mentioned us in an Instagram post after packaging their meat with Acorn Labels.

It’s been wonderful to receive customer feedback and see our products as the finished article. With Sam’s savvy approach we aim to continue interacting with people on social media and grow our engagement even further.

Give us a follow by clicking on a logo!

 

Acorn Labels has invested in an e-Flex 430mm narrow web press with full servo drive technology from Focus Label Machinery.

The press, installed in April 2018, was purchased to increase productivity. Built on a modular construction to allow growth as and when required the press also supports longer runs and heavy-duty card, offering future proofing for the company to expand its core business.

Sam Heneker, production manager, said, ‘The press so far has been a game changer for us and we have been able to up production speeds quite easily by over 20%. This will grow as we bed the press in further. The e-Flex is a quality peace of engineering that we can utilise to increase our capacity and growth.

This press now has the widest capability of all our presses enabling us to get more labels across the web

David Bullen and Paul Stearns are the press operators in charge of the new press and are very happy with the results so far. Set up times and the speed of the press have been very impressive along with the finished print quality.

We have also purchased a Matho Waste extraction system that takes away the waste trim and cuts it up and bags it so our down time is minimal.

Sam Heneker and James Thomas of Focus Label Machinery

http://www.paperandprint.com/flexotech/news/flexo-2018/may-2018/30-05-18-focus.aspx#.Ww-pUZ9KhaQ

https://www.flexoglobal.com/flexonews-2018/focuslabel-05-focus-label-machinery-ltd-announces-acorn-labels-e-flex-installation.html