History

CODIMAG was founded by Mr. Tison and Mr. Demol in 1978, to build a semi-rotary press for the business form market. The CODA was introduced on the market in 1981 and presented for the first time at an international exhibition at DRUPA 1982.

Over 200 of those machines were manufactured in three different versions:

CODA MIXTE – CODA MASTER – CODA M16.

In the early 90s, it became clear that CODIMAG had to diversify its product range. The decision was made to build a semi-rotary press for the self adhesive label industry. At that time, the pressure sensitive label market was already growing fast.

In 1993, the first VIVA 300 were installed, primarily as 4-colour UV Letterpress machines, and then as 6-color machines.
Very quickly, came along new in-line features such as UV Flexo varnishing, rotary die-cutting, sprocket-hole punching, and cold-foil stamping.

In 1997, the VIVA 300 naturally became the VIVA 340, to allow higher productivity thanks to a maximum printing area of 305 mm in repeat per 340 mm in width. Machines were sold and installed all over Europe: France, Germany and Belgium being our main markets.
Then, came along new options on the press, such as wet laminating, hot-foil stamping, screen-printing… and in 1999 the VIVA 340 became available in waterless offset.

Offset was a market requirement for higher quality, in terms of fine dots, high screen ruling, and fine vignettes, especially on textured materials, such as vellum or linen papers.
Very quickly, the offset market for wine labels or cosmetic and food labels went for the VIVA 340 Waterless, and more than 50 machines were sold in 4 years.

In 2002, CODIMAG and STORK signed an exclusive partnership agreement in order to release on the market a semi-rotary screen-printing unit. In 2003, more than 10 of these units were sold and installed. The partnership of two specialists, CODIMAG for semi-rotary and STORK for screen-printing is a full success.

Today, the VIVA 340 range is available as a real combination press, in Letterpress and Waterless Offset, with all options in-line: hot-foil stamping, uv flexo, rotary die-cutting, screen printing, embossing, laminating…
All these features were presented at LABELEXPO 2003, in Brussels.

CODIMAG has now 270 VIVA presses installed all over Europe, but also in Australia, South Africa, North and South America, Russia, Eastern Europe…

In 2005, CODIMAG introduced a new generation of intermittent-feed servo presses, VIVA 420, with higher productivity, and great efficiency. First presented in letterpress, the VIVA 420 also became a combination printing machine.

In 2007, CODIMAG showed for the first time the ANIFLO unit at Labelexpo. ANIFLO is the first anilox keyless offset unit on a narrow web machine.