Author: Domenico Colucci

The European Parliament has recently voted in favor of the emendation of the directive on packaging and packaging waste. The purpose of the legislation is to reduce plastic waste in the environment; it is estimated that in Europe, every year, 8 billion of plastic bags are discarded in the environment. The dispersion of plastic bags have increased the problem of dispersed garbage in water, seas, rivers, streams, canals, threatening the aquatic ecosystem worldwide.

There is another purpose in this Directive. The dispersion of plastic is caused by an inefficient use of the resources, as plastics derived from fossil raw materials.
On the contrary, paper has exceptional environmental credentials, because it is biodegradable and recyclable. Furthermore, raw materials for paper production come from a renewable resource.

Experts claim that paper production is sustainable.

Therefore nowadays, without a new plastic, paper appears to be the best solution for a quality and sustainable packaging. Paper industry is sharpening the weapons against plastic, proposing new and more efficient processes.

From our small observatory we notice a considerable increase in the use of paper, especially with thinner thickness. More square meters but less weight released into the environment.

To put it simple, imagine to pack a product with paper and plastic. Discard the product and imagine it in the environment, once and without really meaning it.
We give a toy to our children, we buy it and wrap it with a gift paper or with a nice plastic bag. We are on the beach, it is windy and we cannot collect the wrapping, which flies away and goes somewhere but… or stuck in a Mediterranean bush or in the sea.

This paper, after a month of rain, wind and sun, disappears and the cellulose in it goes into the earth. Plastic would stay there for centuries, if nobody picked it up and threw it in a trashcan suitable for recycling.

Therefore, for the moment, PAPER and not PLASTIC.

Surely Milan Expo has awakened catering, which is being prepared with fashionable table set.
We have significant demands for table maths with Printed Logos and Graphics from restaurants in Milan. Congratulations to them, to which a considerable part of our image and cooking consistency is entrusted.

The paper table maths for a casual lunch, are a distinctive and economical solution.

Usually we are asked Personalized Place maths in the following size:cm.33×33, cm.35×50 or cm.33×37,5. The math customization can be done with 4 colors to the stroke or with a colored background with the addition of two colors. Someone, for larger print runs, require a four-color printing.
The paper used usually are: Coated paper, Straw paper and Kraft paper !

Have a nice meal!

To customize the paper you use for your own business is considered by clients to add value to the product and to to give the packaging a better care. Very often the product is very cared for, but not its packaging. First of all, the value of package must be equated to the value of the product.

Many times, a highly accurate packaging is created, with a much higher perceived value of the product. The typical example which can describe this phenomenon is the package applied to smartphones. To simplify: we are speaking about the production costs. A smartphone production costs about 80 dollars. Its packaging also costs 10 dollars, the value perceived by the smartphone customer instead is around 500 dollars. If you were sold a great smartphone wrapped with paper for fish, or they simply gave it to you on hand when you buy it, most likely the perceived value would be less than 490 dollars, that is the cost difference between the packed product and the unpacked one. Shoes factory are well aware if this. An average quality pair of shoes, with a nice box, a beautiful tissue paper and a brand of style can be sold, in the right stores, with a satisfactory margin. Evidently, we are not talking about “raw” paper, but a paper worked with color, graphics and the company brand.

For the selling of retail products of a great brand things are a little different, but not too much. Let us imagine a well known and widespread flagship store. Sometimes the Client buys for himself or gives what he buys as a present. It would be easy to imagine the necessity of a gift wrapping in the latter case. In this case, there are four cases for the cashier:

1. He does not have paper to pack the products. Translation: “you bought? Well! Now go home and pack your purchase a you want!”
2. We have gift paper, or any other type of wrapping, with generic prints. Translation: “We will wrap it, well, with what we have. Come on, be satisfied with it”!
3. Of course we have it! We have only one type of paper, ours, the one we chose and make produce for you and your purchases, only our own paper. Translation: “See, we think about everything? Also after-sales!”
4. Yes, of course! After checkout you will find a desk with paper, our paper. We cannot pack your gift, but we let the customers to make it on their own. And if you need some more paper, we turn around and you can take it.

Among these answers, the last two are better than the first two for the Customer’s satisfaction.

The company design (machines in the right place) is very important to if you retrieve margin production and gain in well-being and safety.

After much thinking we decided to move a machine to cut sheets. We have calculated that, by moving it only one meter, we would have gained, in two persons, at least 500 steps less to produce the same amount of product. About 300 meters less per day. In 2015 there are 254 working days that, multiplied by 300 meters a day are 76 kilometers!

To walk 76 kilometers a person uses about 26 hours which, at 25 euros per hour are six hundred  euro/year savings plus two pairs of shoes, fatigue and sore feet.

Hard work we have done because the machines weights 47 tons! Now we have sore feet and back pain but…….we have the machine in the right place!

Recently, we did the same thing with other machines which had a “settled” position for years.

With the moving of some machines, even slightly, we discovered we could work much better.

Crisis made us good. The search of suppliers fulfilling our expectations is not easy during economical crisis.

Now our company is 53 years old and has seen the birth and unfortunately the death of good suppliers. It happens more and more often that suppliers of some good products fail. The crisis grip them and they can not cross the river born at the lowest point of the crisis wave. Sometimes we find ourselves struggling to replace them with products of at least the same level and we can make it but sometimes, regretfully we lose excellencies.

Never mind, market selects the strongest like nature, but not the best.

Crisis made us good; we have learned to work more generously and we have increased our Customer care, and the market has rewarded us with a considerable growth.

Crisis is not finished, but we have learned to live with it.

These are the colors of the Spring/Summer 2015.

They can be used to create products, to decorate home, office and / or your own store.

These choices are the result of in-depth sociological surveys and they come from Nellyrodi, which is a worldwide creditable survey. www.nellyrodi.com

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