Its Cup Runneth Over


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Its Cup Runneth Over
By: Tama Swan, Associate Editor
Issue: 2009aug

Visstun’s flat-printed custom plastic cups offer unlimited end-user possibilities.

Sometimes flat is bad, such as when sales are flatlining. Other times flat is good—think flat-screen TVs and flat abs. But where plastic cup manufacturing is concerned, flat is exceptional.

Las Vegas, Nevada-based supplier Visstun (UPIC: VISSTUN) makes plastic cups by printing them first, when they’re flat, and then shaping them into the familiar cup shape. The alternative method, says Paula Piano, Visstun’s sales and marketing manager, is to keep premade cups in stock until an imprint order is received. The problem with this, Piano continues, is that print quality and capability suffer. “It’s like if you had a rubber stamp and you were trying to put it on something round. It’s hard to get it to go on right, and then if you had to line up another color with it—it’s complicated.”

Visstun’s flat process begins on one of the company’s four Heidelberg offset lithography presses, which can achieve anything from spot color to full-color, high-resolution photographs that cover the entire cup. “People always say, ‘Can you print that?’ The answer is yes, we can print that,” she says.

Once printed, the flat plastic sheets are die-cut to a characteristic fan shape, called blanks, and wrapped into cylinders. Then the bottoms are promptly applied and the top lips formed. “They come off the line at anywhere between 120 and 160 cups per minute. So they fly off the line,” Piano says. Once off, a dedicated crew of cup makers inspects each one for strength and lid fit.

Visstun’s plastic cups come in two colors—clear and white. However, Piano says clear is by far more popular. “Beverage companies take pride in the color of their beverages. … It gives them an advantage to have that clear cup.”

Yet surprisingly, Visstun’s plastic cup sales aren’t driven by beverage companies. “Most [distributors] see a cup and automatically think of restaurants and then think, ‘I don’t deal with restaurants.’ But more of what we do is event driven rather than food and beverage driven,” says Piano. “Because our minimums are so low, we’ve seen a lot of really cool uses.” The short list includes graduation parties, wedding and anniversary celebrations, and family reunions, as well as beach volleyball tournaments and Kiwanis Club luncheons. “It opens a door for them to get a reusable cup that’s like a souvenir.”

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