A digital first future for Schumacher Packaging

Guest blog by Jochen Droesel, Chief Sales Officer, Schumacher Packaging

Having spent almost 30 years in the paper-based industry, I am privileged to work for an extremely dynamic company that is open minded and an enabler for new technologies and changing market demands.

One is digital packaging production in corrugated. It is the future. The market is really turning. E-commerce and the Point of Sale is moving from the shelf to the home where the parcel is delivered.

Bjorn Schumacher saw this about 10 years before, and he was a believer and early adopter of digital technology.

The discussions were never just about the price of inks. It is more about solutions and changing market demands such as shorter runs, faster cycle times and quicker turnaround times. Schumacher saw the changing paradigms, the changes in the channel mix and how brands were looking to improve their supply chain.

We have made incredible advances through investing in digital production. And now we are reaping the rewards with a highly successful business in which digital packaging printing in corrugated is playing an increasingly important role. Technology adoption takes time, but you must start the journey early. You must be a believer, and it is an investment for the future.

Bahlsen is one brand that has been a customer of ours from the very beginning of digital and fully understand the opportunities. They always have different recipes over the year beside their high-runner products, as well event or season related marketing campaigns.

These products are running on our digital machines (we have two Delta SPC 130s from Koenig & Bauer Durst) every week. If we had done these with the same complexity and variations in flexo there would be a lot of additional costs.

A huge trend in e-commerce is the increasing use of serial bar codes and QR codes. We always think about nice, colourful printing when speaking about digital print, but the use of serial codes with digital has enabled us to speed up the logistics process by 30%. It has made an enormous impact in terms of output and costs. The opportunities are limitless.

There is a changing mindset and e-commerce from the Covid period has completely revolutionised people’s buying habits. And we believe that digital will become much more competitive over the years and we won’t invest so much in the future in flexo.

That is a fact because we believe the future will be digital.

We always take a pragmatic approach both for ourselves and our customers.