Growing grandeur of the Kolhapur commercial printing market

Easily accessible to its neighbouring cities like Goa, Mumbai, Pune, Hyderabad and Bengaluru, the city of Kolhapur in south western Maharashtra is strategically located for business. This historical city is home to some good old commercial printers whose works are extensively acclaimed around the region and beyond—their stances get growing and their production facilities keep expanding. Print & Publishing interacts with few such printers to know more about their existing portfolio and their plans ahead. Premier Printers
Big player among all

Rohan Shirke (right) with colleaguesPremier Printers is certainly premier, not only in Kolhapur but all over western India, as the client base of this commercial printer is spread vastly covering Goa and Konkan regions. Established in the year 1944, the company slowly and steadily grew from a scratch level. Gradual update of its production facility, which aggressively begun in 1978, installing KBA and KOMORI presses, is a constant activity of Premier Printers. The company’s 40,000 sq ft facility at Five Star MIDC is equipped with a family of high-end machines. Latest in the line is SBL-1050SE post-press finishing system.

Producing high-quality outputs for customers from diverse market clusters, Premier Printers is a master player in packaging, calendars, book publishing and others. The company is known for producing premium annual calendars. Rohan Shirke of Premier Printers said that they believe in maintaining quality and consistency in their production. Despite the usual commercial printing jobs, which usually cover leaflets, brochures, etc, the company prints, binds and produces books too. Bal Bharti books are produced at Premier Printers.

Shedding a light on the growing Kolhapur commercial printing market, Rohan shares that the market is now gaining new ground for young companies getting new business opportunity, for the reason that commercial connection of the city with its neighbouring cities and towns keeps magnifying. He even shares brief account of the city’s current commercial market, saying that there are 25 four-colour machines currently running in Kolhapur. “When we look at the small and medium size commercial businesses in the city, there are around hundred 15×16 single colour presses all around,” he says, adding that the city owns five web offset presses, churning books and newspapers. He says such affluence of Kolhapur printing market forecasts a full grown market in near future.

Sangaonkar Jumbo Color Xerox
High quality digital corner

Rohan SangaonkarSangaonkar Jumbo Color Xerox is one of the popular digital printing corners in Kolhapur, which is a legacy of generations, and known all over the region for high-quality digital prints. Rohan Sangaonkar, who is second generation professional, is now at the helm of the printing firm. “My father Vijaynath established the company in the year 1982, as a photocopy shop,” he recalls, adding that the stature of the company has enhanced from one level to another, taking into the trends in the market. Main activities at the company revolve around digital printing, scanning, photocopying and other allied jobs.

The production facility of Sangaonkar Jumbo Color Xerox is equipped with Konica Minolta bizhubPRESS C600 and Oce 365 Plotwave 365. “Both the machines serve all our purpose, meeting the varied demands of our clients. Our clients are from all possible segments; Kolhapur being an educational hub, the city is home to a handful of technological and engineering institutes. Students from such institutes come to us for their projects as well,” says Rohan. In addition, Sangaonkar Jumbo Color Xerox serves ad agencies that need textured or premium graphics.

Future plan of the company is that they are going to adopt Konica Minolta AccurioPRESS 6085. “We are looking forward to adoption of this new production press for building up our strength to cater a wider range of high-volume jobs more efficiently in the fast-growing digital high-volume print market,” says Rohan. The Konica Minolta’s flagship AccurioPRESS model, which Sangaonkar Jumbo Color Xerox is gearing up to adopt, is designed for digital colour on-demand prints delivered reliably at high level of image quality and productivity at competitive prices. The press can run as fast as 85 ppm, and identical high-speed printing for a wide range of paper weights.

Shree Murari Mudranalaya
Going for expansion into packaging

Abhijeet PaddleShree Murari Mudranalaya has successfully been into operation for the last 36 years and is ably run by the third generation professional Abhijeet Paddle.

Started by his grandfather Shankar Rao Padwale, the press has come a long way. They have a complete setup for pre-press and printing and are now planning for big expansion in post press in the next few months.

Their facility houses 4 colour SINORA Lithrone and Amsky thermal CTP. With a staff of 36, the press is also engaged in book printing. According to Abhijeet, few of their important clients include Phadke Publication, KIT College, etc.

On asking about their expansion plans, he replied that they are planning to open a new set up of 6200 sq ft for packaging printing, which will be ready by next six months.

LIONS
One of the best equipped presses in the city

Siddhesh S PatilEstablished in 2000, LIONS has been in 4-colour print production for the last five years. Known as one of the best equipped facilities in Kolhapur, the press houses three KOMORI Lithrone 23 press

(four colour), Amsky CTP and Screen CTP. According to Siddhesh S Patil, the young proprietor of the company, their clients come from neighbouring cities like Goa, Karnataka, Konkan, etc.

They also cater to printing needs of printing firms like Sunil Printex, Vinayak Prints, Shreeraj Prints (Ratnagiri), Uma Kiran (Belgaum), etc. They also print books for Patrika Publications, besides doing the post press binding and folding jobs.

Avadhhoot Offset
Focusing on 4-colour printing

Established in 1981 as Bhagabati Printing Press, Kolaghat, Avadhhoot Offset is the offshoot of the parent company. They have recently installed four colour KOMORI Lithrone press, which enables high-quality two-sided printing in one pass and straight multicolor printing in one machine.

Most of their clients are from local arenas, as of now. They also get a lot of walk-in customers. Some mid-agencies printing firms are also their main clients. The company is not resting on its success and is now planning for another Komori Lithrone press in near future.

VASA Offset
Small but efficient press

Gaurang VasaA compact facility with a Heidelberg single colour offset machine. Gaurang Vasa is now taking care of his father’s company established in 1991, which aims at meeting the demands for local customers, which are predominately walk-in customers.

The company also caters to printing needs of many medical institutes in the city. Some of their regular customers include Kolhapur Institute of Orthopaedic & Trauma and Asha Endocrinology.

“Our future plan is to hook to ‘digital’, which is the new prospect,” Gaurang says.

Aditya Digital
Powerful stunning prints

Suresh JadhavThe company is known across the city of Kolhapur for producing stunning prints. Active in large-format printing too,they produce books as well as commercial prints, using KOMORI Lithrone. It has been 12 years since Suresh Jadhav entered into the business. Talking about the company’s uniqueness in print output, he says they maintain everything at a very grassroot level, whether it’s selection of inks or materials.

Their regular customers include a mix bag containing both local brands and corporate biggies, such as Gokul, Hindustan and more.

Suresh feels that the printing market of Kolhapur is now on the verge of expansion, as companies from all over the neighbouring cities and towns are rushing to the city for getting their print

jobs done affordably. “It’s not just affordability, we printers in Kolhapur deliver quality to the need of our customers, quite satisfactorily,” he concludes.