New Zealand’s Pride In Print awards were presented at a gala event in Christchurch last Friday.

Otago Daily Times publisher Allied Press won the newspapers category for its February 17 edition, with Blue Star’s Auckland Print & Packaging winning the magazines category for Sage Journal.

Among the process awards, Stuff’s The Post Your Weekend supplement won coldset offset, with the heatset process award going to Webstar Auckland for the Franklin Times (both above). Staff at the Petone printing plant which produces The Post and its supplements were told in March that the site would close in 2027, with production moving to Christchurch, but day shift printing supervisor Andy Brown says the team was “still producing work of an exceptional standard. This award is a testament to (their) skill and professionalism.

“Your Weekend is always a nice product to print. It has a tidy layout and the colour reproductions are always great. Print quality, web alignment and registration achieved for this job on a double-width, high-speed press was outstanding.”

The supplement was printed and stitched on the manroland Geoman at Petone (which had been relocated from Fairfax Media’s Tullamarine site in 2016) and trimmed on a Ferag SNT480 drum. It used Kodak Sonora Xtra plates, Boyer 52gsm newsprint and Huber inks, with design and layout from Stuff Petone.

Judges praised the “excellent print, stitch and trim, amazing accuracy in registration and lovely colour reproduction.

It was also “well laid up, using white space nicely, alongside awesome imagery. Of all of the papers we had before us – and there were more preprints, catalogues and commercial products this year than possibly ever before – it was the first one we all agreed on – just a great paper,” they said.

The Pride in Print Supreme Award went to Brebner Print for its New Zealand Birds series, which also won the business print category.

PrintNZ awards presented during the evening included Apprentice of the Year to Travers Dobson (Leading Label), and Trainer of the Year, jointly to Rhys Fauvel (Blue Star Wellington) and Matthew Moore (Opal Fibre Packaging Christchurch).

Pictured (from left) are Allied Press print manager Steve Taylor, Blue Star Auckland print & packaging sales manager Pearl Vea, and Webstar Auckland business analyst David Frost.

Stuff staff and other Wellington-based members of the print industry were largely unable to fly on the day to the Christchurch event due to severe weather.