Fifteen years after launching as a digital-first label printer in Brisbane, Ultra Labels & Flexpack is scaling up its packaging ambitions – investing heavily in digital and flexo technology as it targets growth in flexible packaging and higher-volume production.
What began in 2010 as a start-up built around a single digital press has evolved into a sizeable packaging converting and printing business with operations in Brisbane and the Barossa, approaching group sales of $40 million and employing around 85 people. Today, Ultra Labels & Flexpack’s Eagle Farm headquarters houses both its established labels operation and an expanding flexible packaging division supported by a purpose-built plant extension and a string of major equipment investments.
Over the past six years, Ultra has invested around $20 million into the Brisbane site, including approximately $15 million in machinery and equipment and another $4 million on expanding the facility to accommodate wider-web flexible packaging capability. The latest phase of investment includes installation of an HP Indigo 200K digital press for flexible packaging, a Nilpeter FA-26 wide web flexo press, and an HP Indigo V12 for labels.
For co-founders Scott Springett and Ross Fursey, the move into flexibles was a natural progression from the company’s digital label heritage.
“We were digital label printers,” Springett told Print21 during a site visit to the Eagle Farm facility. “Really, this was just the next step – becoming digital flexible packaging printers.”
The founders concur that the decision was driven by both market demand and changing customer expectations. While labels remain a strong business, Ultra sees greater long-term growth potential in flexible packaging, fuelled by trends including convenience formats, e-commerce, shorter production runs, SKU proliferation, and the ongoing shift from rigid to flexible packaging.
“We were already seeing customers putting labels onto bags and pouches,” Springett says. “The obvious question became: why not make the pack itself?”
That transition, however, required significant financial commitment.
“We knew the opportunity was there, but until we had the balance sheet to make the investment, we couldn’t go there,” Springett says. “This is not something where you dip your toe in. You go headfirst.”
The company’s willingness to invest aggressively has been central to its strategy from the outset. Ultra positioned itself as a premium supplier built around fast turnaround, high print quality and responsiveness – a contrast to the longer lead times and large inventories traditionally associated with conventional label production.
“Philosophically, we wanted to create a premium business,” Fursey says. “We built the value proposition by doing things quicker, faster and better.”
According to Fursey, digital printing enabled customers to reduce stockholding, minimise obsolescence and order only what they needed, particularly in highly regulated sectors where packaging and labelling changes can occur frequently.
That same logic now underpins Ultra’s flexible packaging strategy. The company is targeting sectors including wellness, nutraceuticals, healthcare, food and cosmetics, where shorter runs, versioning capability and premium shelf presentation are increasingly important.
Walking through the Eagle Farm facility, the scale of the transformation is evident. The operation spans adjoining buildings dedicated to labels and flexibles, with the newer hall housing laminating, converting and pouch-making capability alongside digital production equipment. The business also operates HACCP processes for flexible packaging production to support customers in tightly controlled sectors.
Inspection and quality assurance remain central to the operation. AVT inspection systems are used throughout the plant, and the company says nothing leaves the site without camera inspection. Fursey says stringent version control processes were established early on when Ultra secured work from regulated nutraceutical manufacturers.
The newly installed Nilpeter FA-26 wide web flexo press is intended to move Ultra “up the volume curve”, enabling the company to target longer-run flexible packaging work while maintaining local supply advantages. Running at up to 250 metres per minute, the press complements the company’s digital capability rather than replacing it.
“We can now do the longer-run jobs that were probably off limits to us before,” Fursey says. “That gives us access to bigger markets, and it helps us drive down unit costs.”
On the label side, the HP Indigo V12 is similarly aimed at scaling production. Ultra has replaced two HP Indigo 6K presses with the V12, which Springett says can deliver equivalent output in a fraction of the time while maintaining digital consistency across varying run lengths.
“The same quality, whether they order 1000 or 100,000 – that’s the point,” he says.
At the time of Print21’s visit, the V12 was still undergoing final commissioning and training as part of HP’s “lighthouse site” rollout approach for new regional installations.
Around the press investments, Ultra is also expanding its finishing and pouch-forming capability, with additional high-speed converting equipment either being installed or already on order. The company expects flexible packaging to become a significantly larger part of the business over the coming years, with the current labels-to-flexibles sales mix of roughly two-thirds to one-third expected to move closer to parity over time.
While optimistic about the opportunity, both founders acknowledge the complexity of flexible packaging production and the ongoing industry challenges around recyclable mono-material structures, customer price sensitivity and downstream recycling infrastructure.
For Springett, though, the company’s trajectory is clear.
“I think now we’ve grown up,” he says. “We’ve got the people, the balance sheet strength, the confidence in the market, and now we’ve got the tech.”
Currie Group backs digital expansion
As part of Ultra’s latest investment cycle, Currie Group has supported the installation of both the HP Indigo V12 Digital Press and the HP Indigo 200K Digital Press at the Brisbane facility.
The HP Indigo V12 is designed to scale digital label production into higher volumes with inline priming, high throughput and repeatable colour consistency, enabling converters to extend digital into applications traditionally handled by flexo. Meanwhile, the HP Indigo 200K targets short- to mid-run flexible packaging production, supporting rapid changeovers and multiple SKU management.
Mark Daws, director of Labels & Packaging at Currie Group, says the investment reflects broader market shifts across ANZ.
“We’re seeing growing demand for production environments that can handle greater SKU complexity, shorter runs and faster turnaround times,” Daws says.
“Technologies like the Indigo V12 and 200K are enabling converters to respond to that shift, combining digital quality with the productivity needed to scale.”
Daws says the long-standing relationship between Currie Group and Ultra has been built around capability and performance.
“Ultra has consistently invested ahead of the curve, and our role is to support that through equipment, service and application expertise,” he says.
Looking ahead, Daws expects digital print to continue expanding across both labels and flexible packaging as brand owners increasingly prioritise agility and supply chain responsiveness.
This article was first published in the May-June 2026 edition of Print21, page 12.
