France is the home of many good wines, but your (Versailles-based) correspondent is not averse to visiting the beer-drinking regions of Europe. Since the last issue of L&NW he has been traveling to Britain and Germany, and in particular visited two label converters, both family businesses of similar size but very different in their approach to business.

For readers who don’t know it, Schwäbisch Hall is an attractive, medieval town in southwestern Germany, and well worth the visit. Way back in the 1960s, that was where Oscar Mahl started a small business making printed forms. At that time in Germany, as in most of the rest of the world, business forms were good news, and the young company prospered. We all know what happened next. Computers first fattened, then flattened the business forms market. By the early 1990s Oscar Mahl’s company was already moving into pressure sensitive labels, using its first label press, a Gallus-Arsoma with IR drying. By the end of the century the company was starting on UV curing in partnership with IST Metz whose plant and head office were, and still are, just down the road in Nürtingen. Today, Oscar Mahl GmbH & Co KG is at the fourth generation of the family, with 80 employees and sales of just under €13 million ($14.5 million). “We still make business forms,” CEO Erwin Mahl told your correspondent, “But labels are close to 80% of our sales. Our clientele consists mainly of manufacturers in the food business. Not the giants like Nestlé and P&G, more the slightly smaller ones, and mostly here in Germany.”

Like many medium-sized companies which make up the famous German Mittelstand, Mahl’s strategy is one of stability and profitability, rather than growth at all costs. “Multi-layer labels are one of our specialties,” says Erwin Mahl, “as are security labels and tamper-evident closures.” The company has seven presses, mostly flexo, including a Viva Aniflo from Codimag, which, according to Mahl, gives excellent results for short-run business. And what about digital? “We keep a close watch on developments,” says Mahl. “And in particular the current presses sold by HP Indigo, Durst and other leading manufacturers, but for the moment we feel the investment can’t be economic for us. A hybrid digital-flexo press could also be interesting but again, not yet. In terms of new technology, we’re looking more closely at LED curing. With support from IST Metz we have just started using it experimentally on our Omet press and are getting good results particularly in terms of a very constant and regular print quality.”

Germany has invested massively in renewable energy, with wind farms dotting the landscape and the shallow waters off its coastline. This has meant much higher electricity costs than in most European countries. Which brings us back to LED curing. Does it mean a substantial cost saving when compared with alternative methods of drying? “LED certainly has the potential to cut energy costs,” according to Mahl, “But mainly because there’s not the warming up period you have with mercury lamps. With LED you switch it on and it’s ready to go.” With most of Oscar Mahl’s business being with food labels, the company has converted to low migration inks. Some people – including your correspondent – wonder whether German angst over food contamination is perhaps just a tad exaggerated (this is not a view to be aired publicly in Germany unless you want to be run out of town on a rail). Supermarket giant Aldi has just issued a draconian ukase to its label and packaging suppliers, and others are sure to follow suit. For label converters like Oscar Mahl this means not just using low-migration inks, but also paying scrupulous attention to the type and quality of labelstock – adhesive migration is as bad as ink migration when some eco-sleuth finds a trace however small on any product on the supermarket shelves. That’s not all bad news, says Erwin Mahl. “Our customers come to us because they trust us, not because we’re the cheapest.”

…and Britain
Ninety percent of PS label converters are specialists who make labels and nothing else. Standing proudly in the ten pecent is Kelgray Ltd., a UK company situated midway between London and England’s south coast, in a town which is neither attractive, nor medieval. Set up in 1972 by two entrepreneurs, Kelgray’s first business was – and still is – distributing, installing and servicing thermo-transfer bar code labelers. In the 1990s came the idea that instead of buying in the pre-diecut blank labels, Kelgray could profitably make them in-house. Using equipment from UK press manufacturer Edale, Kelgray put a toe, then a foot, into the PS label business. The first steps were with blank labels, then, after buying another Edale, with first one, then two color flexo.  Up to now, Kelgray’s printing has mostly consisted of just a color wash and a logo. Customers insist on rapid delivery of their labels, and to meet the various quality requirements, Kelgray keeps a very substantial inventory of both PS labelstock and cartonboard rolls.

Production manager John Perry has long wanted the company to move into four-color printing, and his wish was granted when, in March, Kelgray took delivery of an Edale FL-1 press. “I’ve been in printing all my working life,” he told your correspondent, “But I still have to get myself up to speed on this latest flexo technology. On the older presses we use solid cylinder dies, so flexible magnetic dies take a bit of getting used to. Fortunately the FL-1 is very user-friendly.” Before deciding on the new flexo press Kelgray looked at the digital option, before deciding – like Oscar Mahl – that the time was not yet ripe.

As well as moving into four, or more strictly 4+1 color printing, Kelgray has also recently started distributing print-and-apply labelers, which according to Perry, are “selling like hot cakes,” and also, curiously, into Route Optimization software. If on reading this you think there is a touch of serendipity in Kelgray’s strategy, well, you are entitled to your opinion, but as Marketing Manager Alex Smith points out, “It’s all part of using the latest technologies and working closely with clients to deliver individually tailored business solutions.” The company had 2015 sales of around £6 million ($8.6 million) with between 25 and 30 employees, many of whom have been with the company for over ten years, so they must be doing something right.

Kelgray today is run by two of the sons of co-founder Bill Smith. Additionally with three of Bill’s grandson’s now in the mix it is a third-generation family business. Its customers, nearly all in England, include a leading breakfast cereal manufacturer for whom the company supplied a print-and-apply pallet solution, and a major wholesale plant nursery in need of automated labelers.

Blowing – or not blowing – your own trumpet
Last month’s Europe newsletter touched on the Label & Print show in England, which has now come and gone, to favorable reviews, particularly from the show’s organizers. The show was one of three packaging-related events held jointly, and they totaled 6,585 visitors. But to describe the events (as the post-show write-up did) as “the premier show for packaging professionals across UK and Europe” is, to put it mildly, being economical with the truth. The last All4Pack show in Paris got 95,000 visitors, and Interpack, generally hailed as number one in Europe, was visited by no less than 175,000. All of which goes to show that you can’t believe everything you read on the internet. But then you knew that already.

So much for what is reported on the web. Sometimes it is revealing to look at what is not reported. For example, it is now almost a year since Swiss packaging machinery producer Bobst acquired 65% of Nuova Gidue, the Italian label press manufacturer. At that time, Gidue’s owner and manager Federico d’Annunzio who was, and was to remain, CEO of the Italian company, said, “We are proud to be part of a global organization and to bring in our established presence in the label market…Our partners, customers, suppliers and employees will take great advantage from the long term plans of Bobst Group.”

In an interview with the magazine Italia Grafica in September of 2015, d’Annunzio spoke of the way the deal with Bobst would work. He said, “We have had years of continuous and constant profit and … in this way we were able to maintain our corporate autonomy. In fact, the criterion of integration between us and them (i.e. Bobst) is inspired by a maximum of independence: it is not expected that the Bobst managers will intervene in our operations.”

Since then the Gidue line seems to have gone dead. The Italian press maker had sales of over €30 million in 2014 and its CEO was past master at promoting its sales and its image. Now the trumpet has fallen silent. There’s probably a simple explanation, but six months without news is worrying.

Over here for the beer?
The international print show drupa is coming up shortly (it opens in Dusseldorf, Germany on May 31), and many commentators have been predicting a further fall-off in interest for this event which for the past 65 years has been, and still is, the focal point for the world’s printing industries. The show peaked in 2004 with nearly 400,000 visitors, but this fell to 315,000 at the last show in 2012. Organizers and exhibitors however have not been blind to the fact that for the printing industry, packaging and labels are just about the only bright spots on an otherwise gloomy horizon. Among the exhibitors at drupa this year are narrow web press and equipment manufacturers Domino, Focus, Labelmen, Melzer, Orthotec, ETI Converting, Pantec, Xeikon, HP, Martin Automatic, Rotatek and Mühlbauer.

It’s not quite Labelexpo, admittedly, and for most L&NW readers Chicago is probably closer than Dusseldorf. Whether the beer is as good is a matter for debate. lnw