www.inovarpackaging.com
www.inovarpackaging.com

Ask CEO Jeff Brezek how Inovar Packaging Group has quickly emerged as one of North America’s premier label printing and packaging solution companies and his answer could be summed up in a single word: people.

“Our vision is to build a brand focused on our people, our customers, and our partners – everything we do is about the people,” he explains. 

With 11 current locations, Inovar Packaging Group is creating a world-class commercial enterprise by building an innovative platform to drive sustainable growth and handle the increasingly complex demands of a diverse range of customers. In the process, it’s emerging as an acquirer-of-choice in a highly fragmented industry that’s also uniquely bifurcated, with a sea of independent regional manufacturers on one end and a few very large players on the other.

“We saw the opportunity to build a platform that could scale and address the needs of both regional and small to medium-sized customers, as well as larger specialty consumer and durable products companies that value flexibility, innovative solutions, technical support, and local service, while also offering multiple locations and production options for a diverse product offering with scale and redundancy,” he adds.

“At the same time, we envisioned a highly supportive model that offers individual business leaders all the benefits of a larger organization (i.e., procurement leverage), with certain shared services (e.g., HR, IT, finance) that are centralized while empowering them to focus on their businesses, continue to innovate, and maintain high-touch service,” says Brezek.

The award-winning converter, headquartered in Dallas, TX, produces innovative prime labels, shrink sleeves and extended content labels for many of the nation’s leading brands, and the company has built a national footprint with flexographic, digital, and emerging hybrid printing technologies dedicated to its customers’ success. 

Adding to its existing manufacturing footprint, Inovar most recently acquired Amherst Label, based in Milford, NH, expanding its team of experts in digital, flexographic, and screen printing for a wide variety of industries. Cimarron Label, another recent acquisition, was established with the goal of delivering consistent, excellent service and specialized products to its targeted agricultural chemical and lawn and garden customer base. In addition to Amherst and Cimarron, Inovar has made other notable acquisitions, including Flexo-Graphics, Dion Label Printing, Precision Label, and Tabco, among others, all of which share the same core values.

Culture has driven success at Inovar. With unwavering people, Brezek unsurprisingly believes Inovar’s success is directly tied to company culture – being customer-focused, making sure they have a deep understanding of their customers’ brands from inception through the recycling process. This knowledge allows them to develop and offer complete solutions that can be transformative to their customers’ results. As consumers demand more sustainable product options and more legislative requirements are expected to come in the next few years, Inovar has developed a complete line of fully sustainable solutions for each of its product offerings.

Beyond being customer focused, Inovar’s culture is all about its employees and aligning the entire organization behind the same goals. Look no further than the long-term cash incentive program it has introduced for all employees that accrues value in the same manner as the management incentive plan, to attract, engage, and retain its team members.

Inovar’s culture also revolves around team engagement, attracting, developing, and rewarding key talent. “We are very focused on bringing in and advancing individuals who are creative, innovative, curious and solution minded,” says Brezek. “We believe having the best talent in the industry is directly related to our success and is a key differentiator. Our employees clearly position Inovar as a value-added partner to our customers and not just a supplier of labels.”

With challenges have come new opportunities. To support its diverse customer base, Inovar has also made a significant investment into the RFID market.

“Retailers such as Walmart are rolling out national RFID initiatives to improve inventory accuracy, provide a better in-store shopping experience, and drive more accuracy to online and pick-up in-store capabilities,” explains Ashley Stewart, director of marketing, Inovar Packaging Group. “These initiatives are causing unique challenges for brand and operation managers needing to meet the new requirements, from keeping brand aesthetics to maintaining the complexity in the manufacturing process to a minimum.”

As a primary supplier for both Walmart brands and consumer product goods, Inovar knew that the need to expand into RFID was vital. To solve these problems, Inovar developed the capability, in multiple facilities, to embed the RFID tag into the prime label so that it is invisible to the consumer and does not require any additional labels or application equipment in its customers’ manufacturing environment.

Inovar is also seeing scalable growth. As Inovar acquires companies, it believes in investing to unlock capabilities and services on a larger scale and position the acquired company for faster growth. “Inovar will continue to make strategic investments in all areas of the business to meet the demanding quality, service and delivery requirements of today’s fast-paced production and distribution environments. We understand the complex and ever-changing needs of growing consumer and durable products companies, and therefore, we are committed to increasing our value-added offering, developing new innovative solutions, and expanding our geographic reach to meet those needs,” states Brezek.

One such investment, the addition of almost 20,000 additional square feet of production and warehousing space, has expanded Inovar’s Milwaukee, WI, location, Flexo-Graphics, and its presence in the area. Inovar is also finishing the construction of its new Dallas facility located just a short distance from its current location. The new plant will be triple the size of the current facility and will be adding two new flexographic presses, as well as a new digital press. In addition, the new Dallas location significantly expands space for its local production and corporate office personnel. “The additional capacity, services and embellishment capabilities will greatly increase our ability to meet all the requirements of even the most demanding brands. The team is thrilled to debut the new facility and showcase our capabilities to our existing and future customers,” remarks Stewart.

Inovar is clearly one to watch over the next couple of years as the company continues to acquire, invest and expand its geographic footprint, capacity, capabilities, and service offering.