Reflections from Our CEO: One Year with MCC
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September 5, 2024 marks the one-year anniversary of welcoming Hassan Rmaile onboard as Chief Executive Officer at Multi-Color. He has shared his authentic, unprompted reflections on his time so far through a heartfelt message to our network of colleagues and peers below. Congratulations on this milestone, Hassan!
One Year at MCC: Looking Back and Looking Ahead
One year in and after visiting 50+ of our global sites, connecting with a vast number of our teammates and engaging with many of our customers and partners in the ecosystem, I thought to share my reflections and more importantly highlight the proud, innovative, pioneering and customer-centric 108-year history of MCC and its bright future ahead.
Fascinating History
Multi-Color Corporation, the world’s largest pure play printer of prime decorative labels for consumer products, began operating in 1916. The company was founded as the Franklin Development Company, whose executives invested in the latest in print technology at the time, the sheet-fed, three-color press. The company’s leadership was impressed by the innovation, forming a separate company incorporated as the Printing Machinery Co. to manufacture and sell the new presses. Shortly after its founding, Printing Machinery changed its name to MulticolorType and changed its business focus to printing rather than press manufacturing. The company began producing paper labels in 1918, marking the beginning of Multi-Color’s involvement in lending identity and shelf appeal to consumer products.
From its humble beginnings and working with our very first customer in 1918, Multi-Color recognized very early on that the single most important ingredient to the success of our business is our customers. We are devoted to working intimately with our customers in a spirit of mutual benefit–exceeding their needs–helping them create and accelerate unbreakable emotional connections and bonds between their brands and consumers through a multitude of sensory interactions both physically and digitally.
That spirit is very evident today along with the relentless drive for delivering innovative products and solutions.
Key Dates
1918: The company’s business focus changes from manufacturing printing presses to printing labels
1916: Franklin Development Company is formed
1980: Multi-Color pioneers in-mold label (IML) technology
2002: Annual sales slipped past $70mil
2017: MCC acquires Constantia Labels
2019: MCC acquires WS Packaging
2021: Fort Dearborn acquires Hammer Packaging, MCC merges with Fort Dearborn
2021: MCC acquires Skanem Europe and Hexagon in Australia and New Zealand
2022: MCC acquires Lux Label and Brazil’s Flexcoat Label
2022: Annual sales cross $3B
2023: MCC acquires Korsini and KaryDakis – Top leading IML brands in EMEA region
2024: Stay tuned, the best is yet to come!
As MCC matured, it developed a client roster comprising some of the largest, most widely recognized consumer products companies in the world. The company served as an integral facet of the marketing programs for ubiquitous brands, allying itself with stalwarts of the consumer industries. Over the decades, Multi-Color’s customer base expanded, as did the marketing programs developed by its customers. To keep pace with the increasingly sophisticated demands of its customers, the company embraced technological innovations as they came, and in some cases pioneered those technologies.
During the 1950s, rotogravure printing technology was developed, which would serve as Multi-Color’s primary printing technology throughout the 20th century and into the next century. During the 1960s and 1970s, as greater diversity in label design were required, eight-color presses emerged with Multi-Color investing rapidly in the new technology leading to modern days with significant investments in digital short-run high embellishments custom technologies in addition to the traditional litho and flexo technologies.
Pioneered In-Mold Label (IML) Technology in 1980
On the innovation front, no event was bigger than MCC’s pioneering efforts in 1980. As the decade began, Multi-Color developed the in-mold label. In-mold labels were labels applied to plastic containers as the containers were being formed in the mold. The in-mold label was a plastic with the same chemical characteristics as the container, making the labels more resistant to moisture and easier to recycle. Multi-Color’s innovation became the industry standard for those products packaged in plastic bottles and packages such as all sorts of dairy products (butter, yogurt, ice cream, cheese).
Reflections
- Supremely passionate, dedicated and loyal global teammates who love the company
- MCC through its history was anchored in customer centricity and innovation as core strengths and that continues to shine today
- Profitable growth is evolving to be a trifecta driven through cost-efficient innovative designs, sustainable offerings, and digitally connected intelligent label solutions
- MCC is agnostic in every sense of the word. As we connect with customers, we solve problems and/or create brand new opportunities irrespective of decoration technology or machinery
- Innovation, of course, is table stakes with capabilities to deliver cutting-edge labeling solutions
- Curiosity and open-mindedness to explore and pilot new ideas and processes in the spirit of continuous improvement in all functional areas of the business as the company continues to scale and expand
On a very basic level, we make labels – but it’s way beyond that. We sit at the emotional connection between brands and consumers. When you buy a certain product, the communication and the connection to that brand really comes through the label. That’s the way we approach label printing at MCC and why we’re so passionate about what we do.
Onwards and upwards, the best is yet to come!
Hassan