America’s Largest Cookbook Printer Adds a New Ingredient to its Digital Print Mix with a Xerox 1300 Continuous Feed Printer

COLLIERVILLE, Tenn. and ROCHESTER, N.Y. -- Fundcraft Publishing, the largest cookbook printing company in the U.S., is so impressed with its recently installed Xerox Corporation (NYSE: XRX) 1300 Continuous Feed Printing System, that it plans to use the high-speed monochrome device to print most of the 50,000 books it publishes each week.

Fundcraft is one of the first companies in the U.S. to install the new Xerox 1300. The new equipment will play a key role in managing Fundcraft’s growing and successful short-run book publishing business and maintaining its "bread and butter" custom cookbook operation.

"The Xerox 1300 combines speed and ease-of-use with fantastic image quality, especially for graphics and photos" said David Bradley, owner, Fundcraft Publishing. "This digital printer will allow us to remain competitive and expand the quality and breadth of our offerings"

The company’s goal is to run almost 40,000 books per week on the Xerox 1300 printer alone. Fundcraft produces orders ranging from one to tens of thousands including: self-published books, customized fundraising cookbooks, bilingual student planners with customized calendars, and phonebooks for the Southeast. Some of its very long print runs are done on traditional offset presses.

What helps enable Fundcraft to produce a heavy volume of books weekly is automation software. The company uses Xerox FreeFlow™ Process Manager to help increase productivity with a "touchless" workflow. Labor-intensive prepress activities have been drastically reduced through the use of this workflow, which enables Fundcraft to complete more jobs automatically and ensure consistent quality, print after print. "This is very impressive software and helps us reduce cost and process more jobs in less time with fewer mistakes" said Bradley.

The majority of Fundcraft’s jobs are generated via the Web. To capitalize on this growing shift by consumers, the company has created more than 20 Web sites - such as www.cookbooks.com, www.instantpublisher.com, www.schoolplanner.com and www.familymemories.com. These sites draw more than 100,000 international visitors per week, and are a critical component of the company’s increased business, as it prints books in several different languages. Cookbook customers typically use a personalized URL to collect recipes from a group of people to create custom cookbooks.

The digital system is Xerox’s fastest continuous feed printing device, printing up to 1,308 duplex 8.5" x 11" images per minute (300 feet per minute). The Xerox 1300 uses dry toner, xerographic imaging and flash-fusing technology - a unique process that does not use heat or pressure or make contact with the paper, allowing the device to print on a wider array of materials than competitive systems.

The company also uses a Xerox iGen3™ 110 Digital Production Press and two Xerox Nuvera™ 120 EA Digital Production Systems. Fundcraft uses the Xerox iGen3 to produce book covers, photo memory books and children’s books. The digital color press prints 1.4 million 12¨ x 18¨ pages per month. The Xerox Nuvera systems are used for books where very high image quality is needed, including heavy graphics. Bradley said the quality is better than that of its Web offset press.