Saturday’s Post Weekend isn’t just a weekly treat for Kiwi readers, it’s a tightly-timed challenge for its quality-conscious production team.

“It is a time-critical job, with delivery deadlines to be met,” says day shift printing supervisor Andy Brown. “To be able to produce a copy with the quality of registration and consistency of colour throughout with the pressures of deadlines to be met is quite an achievement.”

The point was not lost on judges in this year’s Pride In Print competition, who awarded the publications category to the Stuf Petone print site for its production of The Post Weekend Te Upoko O Te Ika of Saturday December 9 last year.

Brown says the size of the edition, a 40-page broadsheet requiring the use of three of the four printing towers of the manroland Geoman double-width press. Huber coldset inks and Kodak Sonora plates were used on 40 gsm Norske Skog 40gsm newsprint.

The press was relocated to the Petone site, 10 km north-east of Wellington, in 2015 after the closure Fairfax Media’s former Tullamarine, Victoria, print site, where it had been installed new to print The Age in 2003. A second folder and new control technology, teamed with relocated and new Ferag mailroom equipment, was added in 2015.

Brown was delighted with the recognition of his team’s high-quality work, and his comments about the importance of timely production – “quality at highest speed” – were reiterated by the New Zealand judges, who noted the “strong colour depth and almost faultless registration,” adding, “this was a very well printed newspaper”.

The quality had been achieved despite very short lead time and presses running at speeds of 40,000cph – with operators having just 30 minutes from the start of production to first bundles reaching waiting delivery trucks. And with the entire print run needing to be completed within three hours, there was also very little opportunity to make corrections on the press.

“To consequently produce such a colourful, vibrant and clean publication is testament to the quality of the machinery and personnel involved,” judges agreed.

Pictured: A new mailroom was added when the Petone site was re-equipped in 2015; Andy Brown with the Pride In Print category award