Gallus hosts VIP Technical Seminar

PHILADELPHIA—Gallus, Inc. recently welcomed 50 current and potential Gallus customers to its third VIP Technology Seminar at the company’s Philadelphia facility. With the new Gallus EM 410 S as the backdrop, guests learned about how to be solutions providers for brand owners, how industry trends should be shaping their corporate strategies, keys to providing customer service, and witnessed a demonstration of the EM 410 S.

Key to the event was a presentation on brand protection and the demonstration of the EM 410 S, which employed several processes to create a label using several different brand security techniques including taggants, hidden images, holograms, 2D bar codes, and IR labels. It also employed variable data printing using an inkjet station on the press.

Bud Gray, of Acucote and the Brand Protection Alliance (BPA), called on the packaging converters in attendance to be solutions providers by being bridges between technology providers and brand owners. According to Gray, becoming this bridge takes commitment, the right equipment, and the right resources.

Don Pettit, FDA agent discussed real cases of counterfeiting and how extensive it is following Gray’s talk.

During the EM 410 S presentation, Gallus representatives printed a highly layered label with brand protection technologies for a high-end health and beauty care product in cooperation with the BPA. After a quick change demo on the press, a second job for roll-fed shrink flim (unsupported) produced a 360 degree label targeted for the 21-30 year old wine consumer.

Next came Paul Reilly, Compass Capital Partners, who highlighted five “mega trends” in converting:

1. Slow-to-no growth is driving excess capacity;

2. High-quality, mass-produced equipment and technology is allowing converters to be so good that it’s bad;

3. Selling executives are focused on fulfilling existing needs;

4. Consolidation of suppliers and customer base; and

5. The move toward shorter runs.

The implications of these trends during the next five years, according to Reilly, include, downward price pressure; difficulty differentiating from converter to converter based on product quality; customers becoming effective at demanding lower prices; and suppliers in certain categories gaining pricing power.

Reilly suggested several possible avenues that could be taken to address these implications. He called on the attendees to grow sales and/or reposition them, to become more efficient, to focus on either the customer or the product, to invest in technology that differentiates, identity markets and products where converters can differentiate, and measure sales with the same earnest as production.