Cape printers take top honours in Sappi awards

This was the 24th year of the Sappi Printer of the Year Awards, which recognise printing excellence on the African continent. Gold award winners in the African leg of the competition will go forward to compete in the Sappi International Printer of the Year competition to be held in New York from 09-11 October 2003.

The five Cape-based gold award winners were:

The other two gold award winners are:

Silver and bronze awards were also presented in each of the seven categories.

Sappi Fine Paper South Africa Managing Director, Albert Lubbe says, "The competition not only provides local South African and African printers with a shop-window opportunity to display their best work, it also sets benchmarks for industry excellence both locally and internationally."

"Locally the competition allows printers to test their work against the best available work in African markets. For the African category winners, however, the competition provides an opportunity to test their printing standards against best international practice.

"One of Sappi's key roles as a global paper supplier is to act as a leavening agent for print. We try, through this competition and through other measures, to encourage the printing industry to aspire to the highest possible standards. Despite all the talk of the paperless society, print is here to stay and our goal as a key supplier to the global print industry is to help the industry we serve to become ever more competitive and attractive in the global information industry," says Lubbe.

This year's silver award winners were:

This year's bronze award winners were: