Leicester-based printer, Label Apeel does much more than simply supply its customers with printed labels, it gets involved in the early stages and works up front with designers and brand owners in order to get the best possible solution from the technologies available. Neel Madsen went to visit the company
Owned by Stuart Kellock, who took over the business from his father in 2006, Label Apeel originally started out in the early 1980s. Despite being a tiny operation, in 1994, the company managed to land its first big high street customer by convincing Woolworths that it could printanddeliver labels on time, something that back then, was almost unheard of in the printing industry. ‘I remember working two 24 hour shifts that week when we were printing the Woolworths order and I pulled in every favour I was owed, getting people to help pack the boxes,’ said Mr Kellock. It was a make or break situation for the firm and a chance to prove its worth and stand out from the crowd. Fortunately, it was a gamble that paid off and subsequently brought more high street customers to the company.
As more competition appeared on the scene, a strategic decision was made to move into other markets, particularly labels for high end food manufacturing. This required an upgrade in equipment and the company’s first MPS press was bought in 2004 in order to keep up with demand. At the time, a visit to MPS in the Netherlands convinced Mr Kellock that an EF300 press was the right equipment for him, and Label Apeel became one of the first printers in the UK to buy a machine from the Dutch manufacturer. ‘We made the right decision back then,’ reflected Mr Kellock. ‘It allowed us to start producing the kind of high quality labels that our customers were looking for and to really build up our business.’ In fact, the company was so impressed that another MPS press was bought just a few years later.
Expansion
In 2007, the company bought local printer, Label Studio Ltd, out of administration. The two companies had been worked together for a number of years and even discussed merging. Acquiring its assets gave Label Apeel an entry point into the lucrative beverage market, which it has since expanded into significantly winning contracts with many international customers. Today 30% of the £4 million turnover comes from the beer, wine and spirit (BWS) sector, which is known for its demand for high quality and innovative labels and packaging.
In 2010 having won contracts in the German beverage market with vineyard Weingut Herbert Becker, Mall-Brau, a brewery in Meckesheim and bottle producer Deco Glass, the company decided to invest a further £700,000 in a digital press, and in September that year, an HP WS6000 was installed. Mr Kellock said, ‘The WS6000 was bought to service a clear market and we have had an excellent response from brand owners and other customers.’ It also allowed the company to further its position in the BWS sector and has seen it produce innovative labels, such as the limited edition range of Gilpin’s Extra Dry Gin, where each bottle is individually numbered and features extremely detailed high end embossing and foiling, and a leather-look label for Barossa Bootstraps Shiraz, an Australian company that was finding it difficult find a label printer to take on the challenge.
A Digicon Series 2 finishing line from AB Graphic was also bought as was a Shuttleworth MIS. The finishing line offers screen printing, hot and cold foiling, embossing, flexo head and lamination thereby enabling the company to offer value added extras. The management information system proved so successful that it increased the turnover by 10%.
The company has just been awarded first place in the Food Labels category of the HP Print Excellence Awards 2012. Mr Kellock said, ‘This is our first time of entering the competition so the win was even more pleasing. It is a testament to the commitment of our staff, having had our digital press less than two years, we have managed to move to the position of best in the world. The winning entry was a peel and read construction produced for Leicestershire company, Long Clawson Dairy.’
Consultancy not just selling
Label Apeel made a conscious decision a long time ago to move its sales force away from traditional commercial selling towards a more consultancy style approach, and in Amy Chambers, it has found much more than a traditional sales manager. With a background in packaging technology and a degree in industrial design, Ms Chambers has the knowledge and skills to help customers achieve their goals and further to manage their expectations. She joined the company in July 2010.
‘We look beyond the label,’ she said. ‘The label is a given. We focus on providing a solution that is technically, aesthetically and functionally fit for purpose.’ This includes coming up with new ideas and opportunities, taking into account the nature of the business, the brand image and how the product fits into the product range as well as taking advantage of the print processes on offer. It also means getting involved with the customer at the early planning stages or analysing artwork to see how it can best be achieved on the label.
Ms Chambers explained that in a number of industries the roles of the purchasing manager and the packaging manager have been merged in recent years, thereby losing a lot of knowledge and creating the need for the label printer to become almost a packaging consultant. ‘This is where we come in,’ she said. ‘We can help customers achieve their objective whatever this may be, and we work with both small and large customers, sometimes producing just 2500 specialist labels for an exclusive range of products. Where other printers say ‘no’ for whatever reason, we say ‘yes’ and find a solution.’
Clean desks
A subject close to Mr Kellock’s heart is lean management. He embarked on an MSc in management and quality excellence before the principles of lean became as popular as they are today. He said, ‘Around 2001 and 2002, the business was doing well and we were seeing a decent profit, but we had many complaints and were forever firefighting just to get the jobs out of the door. Then this leaflet from Leicester University which said ‘Have you got problems in your business?’ landed on my desk.’ This turned out to be a promotional flyer for a course in lean management and Mr Kellock decided to give it a try. He said, ‘I was mainly in it for the free lunch, but it turned out to be the best decision I’ve ever made.’
Applying the lean principles to the business as part of his degree course, the company became one of the first SMEs to implement lean as a fundamental part of its business practice when it is today embedded in everything it does. It also proved to be the turning point for the label printer and provided benefits for all employees. Training schemes were implemented and communication with staff became a major priority.
The company is housed in a four-storey building with the top floor functioning as the warehouse, the floor below being the printing and finishing department, the second floor is administration while the ground floor is ‘goods in’. Keeping a tight ship is all part of making this building function optimally and even the desks in the office have been 5S’ed. ‘Lean is not rocket science,’ said Mr Kellock. ‘It’s about common sense and putting these principles into practice and that includes tidying up your desk drawers.’
Perhaps most importantly, this is a company were employees are ready to take ownership and share the responsibility of running the business in the best possible way. ‘Just this morning,’ said Mr Kellock, ‘one of the printers told me about a humidity problem in the digital press, but he was already running tests to find a solution to the problem without being prompted.’
Digital or flexo?
Interestingly, Mr Kellock’s view on what decides whether a job is printed flexo or digital is based on more than simply the length of the print run. As an experienced printer with both flexo and digital capabilities, he knows only too well that there are many more variables in the equation – some have to do with the particular job, such as number of colours, the shape of the label or what finishing is required, while others depend on what the technology can offer and the costs involved, and then again there are timing issues and delivery schedules to take into account. He said, ‘I have run jobs that were way over 3000 metres, more economically digitally than I could flexo, but equally, I have had simple jobs of 250 metres that I couldn’t make pay digitally, but I could, by printing it conventionally.’
When asked about the future for flexo and whether he thought the industry has reached its full potential, Mr Kellock said that he believes there is still room for improvement in some areas. ‘We have seem some incredible leaps in innovations from the repro guys and the platemaking and anilox roller manufacturers. It will be interesting to see what comes next. We have the gravure guys on the run and litho beginning to question themselves, so it would be foolish to stop now. The devil will be in the detail, but it will be that detail that will make all the difference.’
