By Jeff Peterson, executive director, FSEA
Goya Foods, Inc., headquartered in Secaucus, New Jersey, is the largest Hispanic-owned food company in the United States and the premier source for authentic Latin cuisine. Goya provides consumers with over 2,500 food products from the Caribbean, Mexico, Spain, Central and South America.
Each year, a Sales Gala is included as part of Goya’s annual sales meeting. Goya has called on Wharton, New Jersey-based Sunset Printing and Brand Management Solutions to produce the gala invitation for several years. Sunset Printing is a third-generation, family-owned company providing print, finishing and brand management services. Sunset specializes in special event collateral and works with companies throughout the world. “We have printing and other specialty processes that we do in-house, including offset printing, foil stamping, raised thermography, embossing, diecutting, foil edge gilding, grommet inserting and hand finishing,” stated Sunset Printing President Rob Wainer.
The theme of the Goya Sales Gala this past year was “Celebrating Women.” Wainer and his team sat down with representatives from Goya to discuss ideas and decide on an invitation style. “We had previously created a pop-up-style card for the event the year before and they wanted something that would be interactive and suggest a feminine quality,” explained Wainer. “The client mentioned a fan, and my design staff suggested a multi-blade fan design with a grommet holding the blades together.” Goya loved the concept. A string attached to the back of the fanned-out invitation would limit the opening so the words and graphics would line up. The final step in the design was working with Goya to choose the color of the foils to complement the image of the woman and the butterfly.
The decision was to use offset printing, foil stamping, clear digital UV gloss coating and glitter thermography to create the special effects. The first process was printing the graphics in 4-color process on a 5-color Heidelberg offset press. Registration marks were printed on each sheet for the post-press UV digital spot coating. After the initial printing, the sheets were foil stamped with two separate passes on a Kluge press to create the front cover of the fan design and add details on the place and time of the gala. Magenta and gold metallic foils from Kurz Transfer Products were used with copper flat stamping dies from Universal Engraving. The next step included applying a clear varnish and glitter thermography to the invitation over the printed butterflies that flew toward the graphic of the women. The last decorative step (that was not hand finished) was applying a spot UV coating perfectly registered to the image of the woman using a Duplo Raised Spot UV Coater.
After all the different processes, the sheets then were diecut into the different fan blades. The Kluge operator had to be extremely careful to maintain the proper registration with the magenta foil border on each fan blade. After the diecutting, the fan blades were separated, and 17 diamonds were glued onto the front cover – all accomplished by hand. After applying the diamonds, each fan blade was collated into a finished set and a grommet was inserted to create the fan-out effect. Lastly, after inserting the grommet, each fan was spread out on a table and a connecting string was applied on the back of each blade by hand with hot glue to limit the opening so each printed and decorated blade would line up perfectly when the invitation was fanned out.
“Each sheet went through six separate presses and each step had to be in perfect registration,” added Wainer. “Trying to keep the same gripper as and side guides was a huge challenge.”
Once the entire invitation was complete, the fan was inserted into an outer box that was foil stamped with the same design and then mailed with a response card and reply envelope.
The Goya Sales Gala 2020 invitation was not only well received by the customer, it caught the eye of the judges for the 28th annual FSEA Gold Leaf Awards where it won Gold for Best Use of Foil/Embossing – Announcement/Invitation (Creative).
“The customer was ecstatic with the finished product,” ended Wainer. “It was a fun project for all of the press operators and hand finishing staff involved.”
