Tampa Bay, Fla.-based Brightfish Label doesn’t want to be known as just any old conventional label printer. The company strives to take a personal approach to label printing for its customers and specializes in pressures-sensitive labels and printing on unsupported film in sizes up to 13 inches. Flexible Packaging recently caught up with its owner, Bob Castles, to talk about his business, his equipment and why digital printing makes sense for label printers.

Q: Talk about Brightfish Label — what exactly do you do?

A: We’re a digital label printer — we’re digital only. We’ve been in the business about 7 years now. We started out with an HP Indigo 4500 and we bought the Screen (L350UV) right about the end of last year. We primarily focus on the high-end, low-volume market. Where we’ve been strongest is more in higher-end artwork. What we haven’t been necessarily the strongest is on the down and dirty stuff – black text only, barcode labels, stuff like that. We do mostly short runs. The Screen has enabled us to get more into that label run length. In being digital nature and the customers that we have, we’re just generally more geared toward the short-run stuff.

Q: What markets do you serve?

A: We print in pretty much anything. We have customers that focus on industrial labels, so we do a lot of drum type labels. We have other customers who are into cosmetics, so we do a lot of beauty-type stuff, facial creams and lotions and things like that. Then, we do a decent amount in the juice business down here and we do a lot of nutraceuticals. That’s a big business in Florida.

Q: What’s been the best thing about digital printing at Brightfish Label?

A: Speed to market. That’s a good thing. We’re running a lot of jobs on a regular basis and we have a good broad mix of products that we run. The Screen is fast and the Indigo, it’s a Cadillac, everything run on it looks great. FP

Brightfish Label
(727) 521-7900
www.brightfishlabel.com