2 March 2006
A leading digital photographic laboratory is on target to complete a redevelopment scheme costing nearly £2 million. The .7m investment (around £1.8 million) at Warwickshire-based Standard Photographic is being made by Europe's leading photo finisher CeWe Color, which acquired the company last autumn.
Standard Photographic provides photographic services for high street retailers such as Boots, Asda, Tesco and Jessops as well as Pixology and Fujifilm London.
Its subsidiary Dipinto.co.uk supplies photographic prints and products for readers of more than 250 newspaper titles across the UK.
The company operates one of the most modern digital photographic laboratories in the UK and last year invested more than £400,000 in new equipment - including a dedicated 100 megabyte communication line - required to handle increasing business in the rapidly expanding digital photo market.
The current installation of new industrial processing plant, equipment and technology complements the earlier investment and involves a complete re-fit at its Leamington Spa site, which will increase production capacity from 16,000 prints an hour to more than 100,000.
The new fully automated lines - purpose built for digital images - will produce prints untouched by human hands and will provide a full track-and-trace system for all orders. The work is due to be completed by the end of March
At a time when other photo labs are closing down or contracting, CeWe Color is confident that Standard Photographic, its first plant in the UK, can benefit from the expansion of the British digital market.
While bringing in state-of-the-art technology, CeWe Color also believes that it must adhere to the founding principles of Standard Photographic, particularly in terms of quality and customer relations.
Standard Photographic commercial director Declan Mellett said: "This is an exciting time for the industry and our company. We aim to be one of the key players in the UK photo processing market."
CeWe Color, based in Oldenburg, Germany, has 21 highly technical photo-finishing plants across 18 European countries, and employs 3,700 staff. Annually, the company supplies 3.5 billion colour prints to 63,000 trade customers and its 2004 turnover was 28.5 million.