Regulars / Q&A | 57L&L: Tell us about your career to date. competitive. My father began to make some change. The key is that we are a partner Philippe Voet: I qualifed as an industrial changes, to adapt the business. He started for our customers – we help them fnd the pharmacist and spent 12 years working as the process, and I helped to continue it when correct label for their application, even if this a production manager and then a supply I joined in 2011. My brother joined in 2016, requires development or innovation.chain manager in the pharmaceutical further speeding up the necessary changes. industry before joining Etivoet – my family’s Since then, we run the company together, L&L: How did the company adapt during business – in 2011. So I worked for a focusing on product development and the pandemic?potential customer of Etivoet – I know how innovation. . Philippe Voet: Our frst concern was to products are developed, what is important Before, you just made labels. Now, you protect our team. So staff worked from for production and what is important for need a story. We are trying to create a home where possible and we set up a bubble the supply chain. It means I understand the story: we do the diffcult labels. Our niche system in production, meaning only small questions that Etivoet’s customers ask and is how we make a difference. Brands come groups of people had contact with each what they are looking for. to us when the labels they want are too other, to protect the rest of the company. Etivoet is a family business. It was founded complicated for a standard label converter. There was full separation of shifts and units.by my grandfather in 1954 and my father, Our main driver is the multi-layer label. We had more orders – automotive was Marc, still works there two half-days a week. Standard label printers might go up to two down, but hygiene products and household My brother, Frederik, also works with us, so or three layers; we have a seven-layer label chemicals were up, as was food – but we are the third generation. When I joined in on the market – a 13-page multi-layer label our effciency was hit because we were 2011, I was involved in many different areas with a fully PP construction, which can protecting staff and the company. Luckily, of the company. Over time I picked up more compete with the old-school booklet labels. this was made up for by the increase in work.responsibilities. I hate job titles and don’t We use fexo presses from MPS, letterpress even have one on my LinkedIn profle – what from Gallus and digital from HP Indigo L&L: What has been the impact of the matters is what you are doing. We are all in and Mouvent. The machines we use are supply chain disruption?the same boat. specifcally customized for our complex Philippe Voet: Everyone has been hit by production. Our biggest market is chemicals the supply chain issues. Orders that we are L&L: How has Etivoet evolved over – industrial and household – which makes placing now might not arrive for fve or the years? up around 35 percent of our production. six months. Some of our customers would Philippe Voet: Etivoet started printing The food and beverage market accounts for usually order all their labels for the year at gummed paper labels when it was founded around 25 percent; pharmaceutical labels the same time. We have to tell them that in 1954. The move to self-adhesive label another 20 percent. The rest is divided into we can only deliver part of their orders printing took place around 1973 -1974 when other areas. each month, so that we can give something my father joined the business. These are sectors that currently use a lot to everyone, otherwise we would run out Back then, there were not a lot of label of multi-layer labels. But everything always of stock. printers. Everyone was doing similar things comes in waves. When a different sector We have to keep getting materials in and had plenty of work. But things became begins to pay attention to our products so that if there is urgency we can react, more diffcult in the mid-1990s, more and wants to use multi-layer labels, things particularly for the pharma and food sectors. “Before, you just made labels. Now, you need a story. We are trying to create a story: we do the diffcult labels. Brands come to us when the labels they want are too complicated for a standard label converter”Etivoet began printing self-adhesive labels around 20 years after its foundation in 1954 Etivoet specializes in multi-layer labelsJan - Mar 2022