To boost growth, Idea-Rolmarkem has invested in its third Omet X6 press in five years. Massimiliano Bacchieri, the second generation owner, along with his brother, Cristian, have shared their success story of the Italian converter of labels and packaging materials. Massimiliano sits down to discuss his company’s history and the decision to invest in Omet.

Tell us about the history of Idea/Rolmarkem brand?
Mario Baccheiri, my father, founded in the company Rolmarkem SNC in 1978 while working in the self-adhesive industry. Growth came very fast considering my parents are extremely versatile and innovative people. They quickly established relationships within the industry and started producing printing machines and engineered various innovative letterpress and flexo solutions in collaboration with leading technical industry experts.

Growth continued, and in the subsequent years the company started producing self-adhesive materials by applying adhesive to different kind of substrates such as paper, films etc. This led to the expansion of the company into production and export of self-adhesive materials. As the company was growing rapidly under various divisions, the family decided to consolidate all business activities under a new company and identity, Idea-Rolmarkem SRL, retaining the iconic Rolmarkem brand for its success and brand recall in the industry.

What are some of the key choices you made, which you attribute to your success today?
We had established a diverse understanding of the label sector, from machines to materials, which allowed us to probe several aspects of the label and packaging sectors, deeply understanding limits and advantages of each one of them. Over time we took strategic decisions to focus our operations to high profit and growth-oriented sectors and allocated the necessary financial, technical and R&D resources for the same. For the flexographic solutions we were fortunate enough to find a partner with Omet in 2014, which has allowed us to achieve, together with our historical experience and know-how, the quality and safety parameters we require in our printing presses. Together with the R&D at Omet, we are continuously pursuing new innovations and improvements, which also adds to the success factor of the company.

What was the main motivation to partner with Omet?
Our company has established strong business relationships with leading brand owners in the market to whom we supply variety of labels and packaging solutions. These customers are constantly seeking superior quality, performance and innovations, which are quite different from the standard self-adhesive solutions. Hence, we needed to find a partner who could give us a variety of solutions to come together on a single press along with quick development of innovative ideas, time delivery and reliable after sales support. We found Omet to be outstanding in all these parameters, which helped us grow our business in the beauty care, pharmaceuticals and food sectors along with them. 

How have you built your competitive advantage?
Our biggest advantage has been our attention to the minute details of print quality and our commitment in research in the world of prepress, its allied equipment, applications and support as this is a fast-evolving technology. Additionally, we also focus on giving a great service experience to our customers, especially during emergency situations and campaigns.  We would like to add that our partnership with Omet and the capabilities provided by the X6 technology allowed us to present ourselves as an innovative, reliable and a high-performance partner.

How many installations do you have from Omet?
After establishing our relationship with Omet in 2014, we installed our first Omet X6 in 2015. We followed this with another expansion in 2018 and now the third machine has been installed in 2020. These three machines make the most sophisticated production department of our company.

What are the current improvements you are making in the shop floor?
We are introducing low migration inks to both our flexographic and letterpress machines, which are still in production. We are also increasing our attention to safety and hygiene as regulations in this area are becoming more stringent, and we want to ensure the highest standards to our employees and customers. In October this year, we will also take the BRC Certificate (an international certification that meets an English standard in the field of hygiene and health in food packaging and beyond).

What market sectors are you present in?
Food and beauty care are the largest percentage. We also work with chemical and pharmaceuticals industries.

Idea-Rolmarkem has always stood out for its commitment to R&D. Can you tell us more about this?
We continue to focus and pay attention to develop new offerings and solutions to our customers and hence our R&D efforts are spread across the areas of new product-based solutions, product application, raw materials, software solutions and process automation for remote production planning and control. Our commitment to development has been instilled in the culture of the company since inception. In 2005, we became MIUR laboratory and now we are broadening our horizons to offer our partners our new vision of IDEA 4.0.

Covid-19 Pandemic has disrupted the markets across the globe, how do you foresee the future of the market from hereon?
There is no uncertainty in the fact that the pandemic has slowed down, if not stopped many industries across Europe and the globe. This slowdown is likely to continue in the near future as we see negative trends for industrial growth. But every adversity also brings new opportunities. It is time to have confidence in your vision, team and management and focus on this new restart which the pandemic has forced.

If we look at the current trends, the decrease in expenditure in the restaurant sector has led to an increase in the production of the packaged food, a sector in which Idea has operated since inception as we are in the heart of the Food Valley of Italy, in Vicofertile (Parma). Even hygiene and personal care, along with beauty products, are showing signs of recovery now and we are optimistic toward a new beginning and a better recovery with the opening of the country and the world.

What do you see as the current market trends in the label and packaging industry?
Sustainability and recyclability are surely two main trends we see growing in the near future. We are investing in R&D on new substrates and applications, new inks and waste optimization techniques to ensure our company is at par with the standards. It is for this reason we opted for UV LED drying technology on our second X6 machine in 2018 to remain committed to our environmental-friendly philosophy. We believe we are the first label company in Italy to have invested in a label machine with full UV LED technology, thanks to our collaboration with Omet.  Our third Omet, installed in 2020, has also arrived with UV LED technology, which we believe is going to be the upcoming trend in the near future.