John Penhallow10.10.14
Many people in Europe do not love the European Union, and still less do they love its administrative wing, the European Commission. But for once the Eurocrats of Brussels have enacted some legislation which seems to meet with general approval and which, in addition, has had many label and package converters jumping for joy. Officially known as EU Regulation1169/2011, this is more colloquially known as the Food Information to Consumers edict, and its next phase comes into force on December 13 of this year. New clauses in the directive will tighten up the rules on mandatory nutrition information for processed foods, in particular with regard to allergens, and redefines the requirements on indicating country of origin. Oh yes, and it also requires the use of larger font sizes, so that people like your correspondent do not have to go fetch a magnifying glass to read the fine print. This is proving a boon in particular to all those many converters who specialize in making food labels.
Some converters feel the imminence of new labeling directives for EU markets has depressed sales over the summer months as end users run down their stocks. Label and flexible packaging giant Constantia Flexibles blames this for its present lackluster sales. However, it also notes that business has been sticky in three of its other markets, namely Iraq, Syria and Ukraine. Well, you can see their point. Despite this, the group has just posted first half results for 2014 showing a 5.6% rise in sales to €848 million ($1.1 billion) and a 9% rise in profits. These encouraging figures, says Constantia Flexibles’ Wolfgang Schwaiger, are the result of strong growth in emerging markets, particularly India. He also singles out the Labels Division in Europe and the US as a main contributor to success.
Bearding the lion
When it comes to bearding the lion in his den, you have to hand it to Xeikon. The Belgian manufacturer of digital label and packaging presses is one of the top three in its sector, but is a midget compared to Heidelberg, the world’s number one press manufacturer. Yet Xeikon has chosen to hold its next “Xeikon Café” event in the city of Heidelberg, literally just down the road from the head office of the world leader. This comes at a moment when Heidelberg is partnering with Fujifilm and Gallus to develop narrow web digital inkjet technology. To rub salt in the wound, it also comes just before Heidelberg, in a cost-cutting measure, is planning to close the historic head office site it has occupied since 1850, moving all its management and headquarters staff out to its main production plant in a neighboring, but less romantic, town.
Transatlantic partnership
SMAG is one of France’s two internationally known press manufacturers. Its specialty is flatbed semi-rotary screen printing units, and in particular it offers printing/finishing solutions for both digital and conventional narrow web presses. It has struggled to expand its export business in North America, where it faces competition both from US competitors and from UK’s AB Graphic which has developed a strong international presence. As reported elsewhere in L&NW, SMAG believes it has found a “perfect partner” in Spartanics, the US-based laser technology specialist. For Spartanics to become SMAG’s exclusive distributor in North America should present mutual advantages and few problems. The other side of the coin could turn out to be more fraught, as Spartanics already has partnerships, including one with Italian press manufacturer Durst, and another, announced just one year ago and covering both sales and service for Spartanics’ equipment, with France’s TMT labels. Watch this space for more developments.
More specialty materials
Readers with long memories will recall that a few years ago both Avery Dennison and UPM Raflatac developed a special labelstock for making self-adhesive postage stamps. Philatelists – so it seems – dislike self-adhesive postage stamps because they cannot be steamed off envelopes. But thanks to a special PS laminate with a double layer of adhesive, and a combination press supplied by Nilpeter, the problem was solved. It was beta-tested by the Danish Post Office, and well received. However, given that fewer and fewer people send letters by post, the product stayed an obscure specialty item until just recently. Enter the Chinese Postal Authority. Now it is a well-known fact that there are ten times more stamp collectors in China than there are people in Denmark, and philately in the Middle Kingdom is big business. China’s postage stamps will soon all be peelable, we understand, to the greater joy of whichever labelstock manufacturer managed to secure the contract.
But highly specialized, specific materials are not limited to the PS business: Avery Dennison has launched some non-adhesive papers and films especially designed to help converters break into the market for single-serve tea portions. Traditionally these products have been run on wide web presses, but in tea, as in so many other products, the number of varieties is growing exponentially and the runs are getting shorter. According to Avery’s Ralph Olthoff: “This is an arena where narrow web converters perform best. Our Rapid Roll portfolio is designed to give converters quick access to the minimum order quantities they need, without having to maintain high stock levels, and it includes the entire range of barrier properties needed for different flexible packaging applications as well as offering exceptional print qualities.”
Succession successes
When an entrepreneur retires, the change can be traumatic for the company (and sometimes, for the entrepreneur). Many family-run label converters were founded in the 1960s and 70s, and some have not survived the departure of their founder. Rako, a market leader in Germany, is possibly the largest owner-managed label company in Europe, with 1500 employees worldwide and annual sales of around $260 million. Its history goes back to 1969 when Ralph Koopmann and his wife hired a local barn near their home in Hamburg and started making labels. The firm grew, moving into filmic and shrink sleeves, and security label technology, but still mainly in Germany. Rako was an early adopter of digital technology, installing an Indigo press in 1997. The group continued to buy up label converters in different parts of Germany, but not until 2001 did it venture abroad – and then to the very easternmost tip of France, so close to the German border that it scarcely counts as an international acquisition. More recently however, Rako has moved further afield, and today has plants in China and South Africa. Now aged 75 and with retirement in view, founder Ralph Koopmann was reluctant, so it is rumored, to sell out to any of the US or UK-based label groups who were showing an interest. Instead he sold 85% of the business to two of his senior managers, Adrian Tippenhauer und Matthias Kurtz, both with long experience in the label business. They will manage as a team together with Jacob Steeger, who has also been a Rako manager for many years. No details of the deal were made public.
Another succession story from the German Mittelstand, but with a different strategy, took place this year when yet another Ralf (but with an “f”) likewise reached retirement age. Ralf Weidenhammer suddenly and without warning sold Weidenhammer Packaging, Europe’s top manufacturer of composite cans, in-mold label containers and many other packaging products. Weidenhammer is no lightweight by European standards, employing 1,100 worldwide and with five plants in Germany, plus others in the US, Belgium, France, Greece, Holland, UK, Chile and Russia. Its projected 2014 sales are $327 million. The buyer was US-based Sonoco, who in many markets is Weidenhammer’s main competitor, and the announcement came in late August. Unlike the Rako deal, there was apparently no careful preparation to ensure a smooth changeover. Just an announcement (by Sonoco only) that they had bought the company outright for $383 million. After which Weidenhammer’s former owner presumably went off for a belated and permanent holiday.
Time will tell which of these two succession stories works out better.
Some converters feel the imminence of new labeling directives for EU markets has depressed sales over the summer months as end users run down their stocks. Label and flexible packaging giant Constantia Flexibles blames this for its present lackluster sales. However, it also notes that business has been sticky in three of its other markets, namely Iraq, Syria and Ukraine. Well, you can see their point. Despite this, the group has just posted first half results for 2014 showing a 5.6% rise in sales to €848 million ($1.1 billion) and a 9% rise in profits. These encouraging figures, says Constantia Flexibles’ Wolfgang Schwaiger, are the result of strong growth in emerging markets, particularly India. He also singles out the Labels Division in Europe and the US as a main contributor to success.
Bearding the lion
When it comes to bearding the lion in his den, you have to hand it to Xeikon. The Belgian manufacturer of digital label and packaging presses is one of the top three in its sector, but is a midget compared to Heidelberg, the world’s number one press manufacturer. Yet Xeikon has chosen to hold its next “Xeikon Café” event in the city of Heidelberg, literally just down the road from the head office of the world leader. This comes at a moment when Heidelberg is partnering with Fujifilm and Gallus to develop narrow web digital inkjet technology. To rub salt in the wound, it also comes just before Heidelberg, in a cost-cutting measure, is planning to close the historic head office site it has occupied since 1850, moving all its management and headquarters staff out to its main production plant in a neighboring, but less romantic, town.
Transatlantic partnership
SMAG is one of France’s two internationally known press manufacturers. Its specialty is flatbed semi-rotary screen printing units, and in particular it offers printing/finishing solutions for both digital and conventional narrow web presses. It has struggled to expand its export business in North America, where it faces competition both from US competitors and from UK’s AB Graphic which has developed a strong international presence. As reported elsewhere in L&NW, SMAG believes it has found a “perfect partner” in Spartanics, the US-based laser technology specialist. For Spartanics to become SMAG’s exclusive distributor in North America should present mutual advantages and few problems. The other side of the coin could turn out to be more fraught, as Spartanics already has partnerships, including one with Italian press manufacturer Durst, and another, announced just one year ago and covering both sales and service for Spartanics’ equipment, with France’s TMT labels. Watch this space for more developments.
More specialty materials
Readers with long memories will recall that a few years ago both Avery Dennison and UPM Raflatac developed a special labelstock for making self-adhesive postage stamps. Philatelists – so it seems – dislike self-adhesive postage stamps because they cannot be steamed off envelopes. But thanks to a special PS laminate with a double layer of adhesive, and a combination press supplied by Nilpeter, the problem was solved. It was beta-tested by the Danish Post Office, and well received. However, given that fewer and fewer people send letters by post, the product stayed an obscure specialty item until just recently. Enter the Chinese Postal Authority. Now it is a well-known fact that there are ten times more stamp collectors in China than there are people in Denmark, and philately in the Middle Kingdom is big business. China’s postage stamps will soon all be peelable, we understand, to the greater joy of whichever labelstock manufacturer managed to secure the contract.
But highly specialized, specific materials are not limited to the PS business: Avery Dennison has launched some non-adhesive papers and films especially designed to help converters break into the market for single-serve tea portions. Traditionally these products have been run on wide web presses, but in tea, as in so many other products, the number of varieties is growing exponentially and the runs are getting shorter. According to Avery’s Ralph Olthoff: “This is an arena where narrow web converters perform best. Our Rapid Roll portfolio is designed to give converters quick access to the minimum order quantities they need, without having to maintain high stock levels, and it includes the entire range of barrier properties needed for different flexible packaging applications as well as offering exceptional print qualities.”
Succession successes
When an entrepreneur retires, the change can be traumatic for the company (and sometimes, for the entrepreneur). Many family-run label converters were founded in the 1960s and 70s, and some have not survived the departure of their founder. Rako, a market leader in Germany, is possibly the largest owner-managed label company in Europe, with 1500 employees worldwide and annual sales of around $260 million. Its history goes back to 1969 when Ralph Koopmann and his wife hired a local barn near their home in Hamburg and started making labels. The firm grew, moving into filmic and shrink sleeves, and security label technology, but still mainly in Germany. Rako was an early adopter of digital technology, installing an Indigo press in 1997. The group continued to buy up label converters in different parts of Germany, but not until 2001 did it venture abroad – and then to the very easternmost tip of France, so close to the German border that it scarcely counts as an international acquisition. More recently however, Rako has moved further afield, and today has plants in China and South Africa. Now aged 75 and with retirement in view, founder Ralph Koopmann was reluctant, so it is rumored, to sell out to any of the US or UK-based label groups who were showing an interest. Instead he sold 85% of the business to two of his senior managers, Adrian Tippenhauer und Matthias Kurtz, both with long experience in the label business. They will manage as a team together with Jacob Steeger, who has also been a Rako manager for many years. No details of the deal were made public.
Another succession story from the German Mittelstand, but with a different strategy, took place this year when yet another Ralf (but with an “f”) likewise reached retirement age. Ralf Weidenhammer suddenly and without warning sold Weidenhammer Packaging, Europe’s top manufacturer of composite cans, in-mold label containers and many other packaging products. Weidenhammer is no lightweight by European standards, employing 1,100 worldwide and with five plants in Germany, plus others in the US, Belgium, France, Greece, Holland, UK, Chile and Russia. Its projected 2014 sales are $327 million. The buyer was US-based Sonoco, who in many markets is Weidenhammer’s main competitor, and the announcement came in late August. Unlike the Rako deal, there was apparently no careful preparation to ensure a smooth changeover. Just an announcement (by Sonoco only) that they had bought the company outright for $383 million. After which Weidenhammer’s former owner presumably went off for a belated and permanent holiday.
Time will tell which of these two succession stories works out better.