A compact system for flat-wrapping newspapers was among a host of products making their debut at this week's PacPrint trade show.

Nobody's suggesting the once-every-four-years Australian event had much a focus on newspaper production, but a handful of vendors were present at the show - either on booths or - horror of horrors after Landa was "banned" from the show after declining stand space - in the aisles.

Publicity arising from the organisers' curious decision must have been a great publicity boost for Landa but, so far as we're aware, they're not ready to print newspapers, so we'll move on.

Despite dominance of wideformat digital, labels and packaging, PacPrint did bring together most of the major suppliers of digital newspaper printing systems... but none of the equipment.

Kodak's Scott Barry - still with Prosper in his portfolio - was ready to talk, and hinted at the possibility that a long-awaited order might appear in the foreseeable future. Fujifilm and Fuji Xerox - which worked with APN on projects prior to its acquisition by News Corp last year - shared space, with HP and Canon nearby. Canon, incidentally, is about to re-establish its Océ acquisition as a Venlo-driven production printing unit in Australia. Even Xeikon's Trevor Crowley had newspaper capable mono - and at a stretch, colour - systems to discuss.

The surprise for me, was to happen upon PacPrint virgin Pressio, which had been encouraged to exhibit at the show by highly-satisfied customer the Lanyon family's Sunraysia Daily.

Press operations manager Jeremy Blake found the Japanese company on the internet, after looking for a system to upgrade presentation of its property supplement. Chief executive Takashi Otani brought two colleagues to Melbourne to show the AV8 flat-wrapping system and a collator for preassembling flyers and advertising material. The Daily has two AV8s to wrap 15,000 copies of its daily production in 7-8 µm film, supplied by Pressio.

Blake says he's delighted with his new-found, "so professional" supplier... and real estate advertisers are happy too.

Pictured: Takashi Otani and Jeremy Blake (right) with (from left) Atsuyoshi Imamura and Kenta Kanamori