As a printing business — in an industry that’s rapidly changing — Church Offset Printing Inc. has to keep up with the latest standards.

Six months ago, the company got a new state-of-the-art Shinohara press, which allows clients to receive high-quality prints faster and less expensively than their competition, said Michael Kruse, president of the company.

The press, which runs digitally, sends the images that are going to be printed directly from the computer to the plate, Kruse said.

The Shinohara press, together with the company’s other new Indigo Ink Digital press, have made printing easier, faster and cheaper in the long run — all of which are important goals for the business.

Started in the 1940s in the basement of what was then the Trades Publishing Co. in Albert Lea, Church Offset Printing now has customers all over the country and prints between 10,000 and 12,000 different jobs a year.

It has locations in Albert Lea, St. Paul and Northwood, Iowa.

When it first started under the direction of the late Bob Church, the company was known as Church Lithograph.

Now, the company is under the direction of the Kruse family, and together with its affiliates, North American Label and Mail Expeditors, Church Offset Printing has expanded to become a printing shop with “designers, sheet fed presses, adhesive roll labels, a mailing house and information technology specialists,” the company’s Web site states.

It prints for groups such as the Department of Natural Resources, the Department of Forestry and the Minnesota Center for Environmental Advocacy, to name a few. It also prints local publications such as “Albert Lea Seed.”

Combining the new presses with all of their other efforts, the company is able to pursue an environmentally-friendly, “green” campaign.

Kruse said last year Church Offset Printing recycled about 50 tons of scrap paper.

The business recycles everything from the plastic wrap and cardboard to paper and ink.

It also uses soy ink and UL-listed paper.

If clients ask for their projects to be printed on recyclable paper, that option is available, though not as many want it because of added cost, he said.

Because there’s non film or chemicals, and the process is all computerized, it’s “faster and cleaner,” Kruse said.

“Unless you’re willing to invest in the equipment, you’re not going to be as energy-efficient, cost-efficient or give them as good a product,” he said. “You have to keep up with the technology. It all has to do with speed and cost.”

With the changes in technology comes changes in staffing. While there used to have to be more people to operate the presses, now there are half as many and instead more people on sales, Kruse said.

“The presses are getting smaller and faster — more automatic,” said Dan Flanders, lead operator of the new Shinohara press.

Ninety percent of the work is done by the machines, he said.

Kruse said there are 35 employees at the local business, including drivers, estimators, office staff, art staff, pressmen and others.