Since 1947

With the last of his funds, Jan Bongaerts procured a small plot at the Koolmijnlaan in Heusden Zolder and builds a small house of 6 by 8 meters. He also buys a second hand press and comes up with the name Drukkerij Moderna.

The printing business was a success from the start. For the local cinemas, a lot of pamphlets had to be printed. That is how the idea grew to combine publicity with different cinemas. The first advertising newspaper was called Drukkerij Moderna's Film News. Later, other traders wanted to advertise in this magazine.

We invested in the first cold set rotational press. A very risky move, however our press was running orders 24/7 in no time.

Next to cold set and sheetset we also chose to invest in a rotational heatset press. The capabilities where limited but that didn't stop us from obtaining our spot on this market.

Our printing office became too small. Thus, we moved to a new and functional property right next to the E313 highway in Paal-Beringen.

To give our finishing department more space to grow, optimax is called to life. A fully-pledged Finishing company on a new location in Beringen.

The First 48 page heatset rotation press is a Lithoman IV with quickstart rewetting and a very small paperwastage. This proved to be a very succesful choice, our first steps towards the magazine market where a fact.

Thanks to the procurement of a adjacent plot our finishing department is integrated once more in one location. It's a record year for investments! A 10 colour 70x100 press with spoilfeeder is added to our arsenal. Also the finishing department gets a new helping hand in the form of a super fast cuttingline and our first real robot.