NZME Commands Newsprint Sector

NZME Commands Newsprint Sector

New Zealand Media & Entertainment (NZME) was [May 1] confirmed as the best newspaper printer in the country, taking out the prestigious annual Newspaper Coldest Process prize in a glittering Pride In Print Awards Evening at Wellington’s TSB Arena.

A buoyant crowd of almost 600 people witnessed NZME’s Ellerslie press site bestowed with the award in recognition of its quality production of Bite -- a food, health and wellness publication inserted each Monday into the New Zealand Herald.

Further reinforcing NZME’s dominance, the firm claimed six of the 12 Newspaper Gold Medals awarded for production of its own titles Weekend Herald and Bite, Fairfax publication Manukau Courier, and external titles Chinese Herald 10/6/2014, Bay News and The Vision Times 8/2/2014.

NZME property, print and production group manager Dan Blackbourn expressed huge pride in the newly-formed organisation continuing the tradition of fine performance at the Awards fostered by founding-partner company, APN Print New Zealand.

“It is a fantastic achievement for NZME Ellerslie,” said Mr Blackbourn.

“We continuously strive to achieve high quality in the products that we put out, both for our internal and external customers -- and we’re actually over-achieving on our quality targets so that every publication we put out is a potential award-winner.”

“Every Pride In Print we have featured as winners and we have previously taken out a Category Award through the APN Print Hastings site and our Tauranga site also achieved the Supreme Award.

“The print sites are continuing to produce and showcase what our people are capable of.”

Mr Blackbourn noted there were two distinct rewards from being so highly acknowledged in the Pride In Print Awards.

“One is for the people on the floor. They ensure that the quality processes we have in place are properly executed, so it is great that they gain satisfaction from having that recognised.

“The other is for our clients. Again, it cements the reason they print with us -- they know the quality they are going to get out every week and having that recognised benefits us all as we take their products forward.

“But it all comes down to the people we have -- not only the printers, but the people in pre-press, post-press, packaging -- it is a real team effort.”

Furthermore, NZME featured prominently in last week’s PrintNZ awards ceremony, being again named a Company Training Award Finalist and having senior printer Phil Ost bestowed with the Workplace Trainer Award.

“Phil has been a repeat Finalist in this award and we are absolutely delighted that his invaluable training contributions have at last been recognised,” continues Mr Blackbourn.

“He has been instrumental in the successes of our trainees both past and present, and his efforts have helped deliver two previous Company Training Awards and two PrintNZ Apprentice of the Year successes. Phil is working with our six current apprentices to ensure our successes continue in the future.”

NZME’s Molisi Saulala (Day Shift Post Press) and both Tui Thompson and Alec Fesuluai (Steelcraft Night Press) were also presented with their graduation medals at the PrintNZ ceremony.

“Molisi is our current Day Post Press team leader and Tui and Alec are very important members of the Night Press print team. These three guys have been exceptional learners and have developed into awesome tradespeople.”

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