MEYERS
7277 Boone Ave N, Minneapolis, MN 55428
www.meyers.com

Meyers Printing Companies, Inc. is a Minneapolis, MN-based manufacturer of a wide range of innovative packaging products for many of the world’s top brands. In addition to labels, Meyers manufactures 3D displays, signage, coupons and games, sales promotion kits and more. Meyers is comprised of three divisions, the Label Solutions Group, Card Solutions Group and the Retail Marketing Solutions Group. However, the label business accounts for 75% of sales.

Meyers’ origin dates back to 1949, when Gerald Dillon acquired the company from Joseph Meyers. Wanting to maintain tradition, Gerald kept the Meyers name for the organization. His three sons – David, Christopher and Mark –  joined him in managing the company. David Dillon became president in 1986 and currently is chairman and CEO; Chris Dillon is president. Also playing significant roles in the company’s day-to-day operations are Gregg Temple, president of the Card and Label Solutions division, Dave McConnon, vice president of operations, Card and Label Solutions, and Matt Evers, vice president of Quality and Continuous Improvement.

Throughout its history, Meyers has continuously grown while diversifying its varied product offering – something it continues to do today. Like many label companies, Meyers had a modest beginning – platen letterpresses, small quarters, and a first year sales volume of $17,000. Today, the company operates a wide range of conventional and digital printing and converting equipment, and enjoys growing annual sales volume surpassing $60 million. There are 224 employees at Meyers’ 250,000 square foot state-of-the-art facility in Minneapolis. In addition, the company is ISO 9001:2008 certified.

Meyers has a wide range of flexographic label presses, including two MPS EF UV flexo presses, in both 10- and 8-colors. There are four Mark Andy presses: two 4150s (an 8-color 10″ and a 10-color 10″), an 8-color 10″ press and a 13″ 12-color 2200. Rounding out the conventional printing portfolio are an Arsoma EM410 10-color UV flexo press, a Webtron 650 15-color flexo press and a 13″ Delta Crusader.

On the prepress side, the company uses a an Esko 4835 HD flexo plate imager, a DuPont HD Digiflow ECLF, a DuPont 4260 TD Cyrel Fast Thermal Processor and in-house rotary screen imaging and processing.

Digital printing is done on an HP Indigo 6600 with an AB Graphic Digicon Series 2 handling digital finishing and embellishment. Additional finishing and converting is done with three Rotoflex machines, two Atlantic Zeiser Versa image/encoding lines, and a multi-feed automatic shrink-wrap packaging line.

Meyers takes a leadership and partnership approach to technology. The company has an engineering staff for various web configurations and press modifications when needed. Notably, Meyers was the first company in North America to acquire in-house digital flexo plate imaging and thermal plate processing, having been a beta site for DuPont.

“In recent years, major investments have been focused on digital print technologies, from prepress to pressroom, finishing and to finished product,” explains Gregg Temple. “Much of the recent growth has had a strong variable data component, supported by data-management software developed by our wholly-owned subsidiary, Verify Brand.”

Meyers’ Verify Brand platform tracks the entire journey of its customers’ products, from production to purchasing and beyond, while delivering insights about a brand and consumers every step of the way.

Verify Brand helps brand owners acquire and retain consumers, better understand their behavior, boost brand engagement and increase sales. It leverages valuable package real estate, social media, SKU-specific and channel-specific promotions, and brand currency. “Whether your brand protection strategy includes anti-counterfeiting, protection from diversion and tampering, or supply chain track and trace, our platform can secure your products and increase revenue,” Temple explains.

Meyers’ customers benefit from the synergy created by offering a wide range of products, the focus provided by a single manufacturing facility, its R&D and New Product Development resources, and Meyers’ commitment to continuous improvement utilizing Six Sigma tools. While the company produces both long and short runs, according to Eric Pohl, manufacturing is trending toward the latter. “Our label runs are getting shorter and shorter, and are increasingly including more SKUs,” he says. “And our label customers are also constantly looking for new ideas and innovative solutions.”

Temple adds, “Our label business has been affected by SKU proliferation, which leads to more versions and shorter run quantities, driving the need for more digital solutions to remain competitive.”
Meyers manufactures pressure sensitive labels, unsupported film labels, as well as RFID labels. Major markets served include health and beauty, household goods, food, beverage, promotional products and converting solutions.

Meyers prides itself on providing quality labels while being nimble and versatile in order to meet demands for customized, turnkey solutions. “Technology has improved to a point where label printing is much more of a science than a craft,” Temple explains. “Because of that, every serious player in the industry is performing quite well. As a result, today quality is more of a given than a differentiator. But at Meyers, we succeed by building end-to-end solutions for our customers, enabling us to support them and their rapidly changing demands for their products. We specialize in being responsive.”

Meyers’ dedicated sales team works within its targeted markets looking for potential customers with similar requirements as its current customers. Pohl explains, “We’re continuing to grow label sales with a specific focus on our primary markets and adding in additional capabilities – both from a print technology perspective and product perspective.

“Today, we have much more of a focus on digital production to meet demand for the higher number of versions and lower quantities,” Pohl continues. “Going forward, speed will be a major factor, as well as meeting the requirements for our customers’ turnkey projects. We see ourselves delivering these personalized turnkey solutions using web-based technology to tether customers to Meyers. This in turn allows us to provide clients with greater visibility into their work. And it helps them to create efficient operating processes thereby lowering the total applied cost.”

Temple emphasizes that Meyers is built for the future. He says, “Our culture of integrity is dedicated to world class customer service, and with the technology we have, we can respond to significant, un-forecasted demand.”

Meyers continues to get more involved in the greater label industry having recently become a TLMI member.  –Steve Katz