nilpeter.com Press Release Nothing succeeds like success

It is always encouraging to meet a label converter who is building up his business. And when he invests in the latest servo-driven press and at the same time recruits 10% more staff, you know he must have the will to win.

A.P.E. Etiquettes and its owner-manager Christian Poirault both have their roots in France’s Poitou region, the rich agricultural plain around Poitiers. “We need to sell the product, we need to tell customers about A.P.E. and what we can do for them.” Christian Poirault sees himself as a sales and marketing man first and foremost, organising Open Days and promoting his company via the media. His second role, he says, is a kind of Team Manager. With 130 employees, he devotes his time and effort, as he says, to “making sure everyone is pulling in the same direction”. A small but significant part of this campaign is what he calls the “Be Cheerful Charter”, which sets out to all employees what the company believes in, including interacting cheerfully with colleagues and customers.

Teamwork is all-important at A.P.E., but investing in the right machinery is no less so. While many label converters have gone down the 100% flexo route, A.P.E. prides itself in offering all the main narrow web print technologies: flexo, letterpress, screen, offset and digital. With several Codimag Vivas, one Gallus and one MPS press, A.P.E. still needed to boost its capacity in flexo, and set out to find the right machine to meet its needs. “We were starting to get more requests for multi-layer labels” explained Christian Poirault “Particularly from the major oil companies for their motor oil cans. Like many other label end-users, they need an eye-catching label to sell the product, but they also have to include all sorts of legally required instructions and warnings in umpteen languages. So we set out to find a high-performance flexo press which could produce multi-layer labels. It soon became clear that we would need a custom-built press, but I was in no mood to pay over the odds.”

“Nilpeter came up with a proposal based on their FA-4 flexo press. We finally came down in favour of this model, in 420 mm reel width and with 9 colours. A second unwinder was added to allow double-face printing of the top film which is then laminated onto a standard self-adhesive material using a peel-off adhesive. The whole line uses Nilpeter’s latest anilox sleeve technology with individual third-generation servo drives on each print unit. Fast make-ready is particularly important on the difficult multi-layer labels, and Nilpeter’s technology seemed to fit the bill.” Before deciding on this key investment, Christian Poirault and his technical manager Jean Quoniam did the tour of other press manufacturers offering different solutions to the same problem. “I was impressed by Nilpeter’s user-friendly design, as well as by the fast set-up times. With average run lengths falling, a label converter has to consider a colour or format change like a pit stop – every extra second means the competition is gaining on you!” says Poirault, who knows a thing or two about car racing.

Nowadays many label converters are pushing specialisation to its limits – only making pharmaceutical labels, for example. A.P.E. Etiquettes has taken a different line. “We want to be present on all the various self-adhesive label markets” says Christian Poirault. “But in each sector we are looking to develop niche products. That’s why we need to keep in close and constant contact with the customer. You don’t develop new product ideas just by sitting in an ivory tower. You need to get out there and talk to people, see what their problems are. Then and only then you can go away and start thinking up solutions, maybe even solving problems the customer isn’t aware of. Take the example of La Vache Qui Rit, which is a well-known French brand of cream cheese sold in a round tray. We worked with the brand owner Unibel to develop a multi-layer label which was re-sealable and which has already started boosting sales of the product. This is the kind of imaginative product we will be running on the new Nilpeter press”.
There is no digital printing at A.P.E.’s factory in Poitou but the company has a major shareholding in a Parisian converter specialising in digital label printing and converting. “Some people in the business believe that digital printing will sweep all before it,” says Poirault “I’m not so sure. It’s obviously ideal for very short runs, and that’s what we use it for. But modern flexo technology being developed by companies like Nilpeter is also making short runs economically viable. When it comes to prepress, then it seems to me that digital platemaking is essential nowadays. At A.P.E. we are fully equipped with CtP for all the print technologies we use.

Christian Poirault and Nilpeter’s CEO Lars Eriksen have something else in common, apart from their appreciation of top-quality narrow web presses: both men have a keen interest, one might almost say an obsession, with human relations and proper teamwork. “No company can run properly if its members aren’t motivated to work as a team” explains Poirault “I see myself as a kind of coach whose job is to move everyone forward to a common goal. Every year at A.P.E. we have a social occasion for all the employees when I set out the company strategy and we can discuss how we are going to achieve it. We also organise receptions for customers, students and institutional groups. I am an active member of the French label converters association UNFEA, and for several years have played a role in communication on the problems of waste recycling and other environmental issues linked to our industry.

Christian Poirault doesn’t spend every day of the year running a label company. He took part in the 2006 Paris-Dakar Rally and, sponsored amongst others by Nilpeter, finished 42nd in the overall classification and first of all the private entrants. Clearly, whether behind a desk or behind the wheel, he is a man with the will to win.

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Paris-Dakar winner opts for Nilpeter press

A.P.E. Etiquettes is one of France’s leading label converters, with 130 employees and annual production of over 11 million m2 of self-adhesive labels. A.P.E. is also the first company in France to install a Nilpeter FA-4 flexo press.
At a recent demonstration, the new press ran multi-layer peel-off labels for motor oil cans, a particularly challenging job. Said company owner Christian Poirault “We wanted a flexo press which was versatile and which could handle multi-layer labels. The Nilpeter FA-4 line uses Nilpeter’s latest anilox sleeve technology with individual third-generation servo drives on each print unit. Fast make-ready is particularly important on the difficult multi-layer labels, and Nilpeter’s technology fits the bill. I was particularly impressed by Nilpeter’s user-friendly design, as well as by the fast set-up times. With average run lengths falling, a label converter has to consider a colour or format change like a pit stop – every extra second means the competition is gaining on you!” says Poirault, who knows a thing or two about car racing.
When he’s not running a label firm, he competes in motor rallies – but not your Sunday afternoon stroll – he finished 42nd (and first among the private entries) in the 2006 Paris-Dakar event – with Nilpeter as one of his sponsors.