When Glenn Rowley founded Glenmore Custom Print and Packaging in 1981, it was at the height of a major North American recession.
By the time the next major recession rolled around in 2008, the commercial print business was being hammered.
One of the first things business cuts back on in a recession is advertising, so newspapers and commercial printers are among the first businesses to suffer.
But the last recession was worse than others for printers because other forces were compounding the short-term fall in sales with longer-term trends.
Email had been eating into the mail-out and flyer business for a decade already and, by 2008, social media had become a new force to be reckoned with.
“Print was the biggest way to market your business since, like, the 1600s. And then everything changed,” said Rowley’s son, James Rowley, Glenmore’s general manager.
But while other commercial printers disappeared, Glenmore grew. It has doubled its head count from 50 employees in 2008 to 100 today.
“My dad [and] my uncle, they always said the best time for a good company is during a recession because it really separates out the men from the boys,” James Rowley said.
Glenn Rowley, who is now semi-retired, had expanded the business without overextending it. So when other commercial printers were going out of business, Glenmore was able to pick up distressed assets and grow.
It bought two financially troubled printing companies, picking up their employees and customers. The company also diversified, moving more into packaging, which has required a series of investments in new equipment adding up to roughly $1.5 million.
“Since [2008], we’ve bought almost 20 pieces of new or used equipment,” James Rowley said. “We’ve bought 23 printing units since the beginning of the recession.
“My dad did a very, very good job of keeping his cash close to his chest. We actually had cash available. We have zero debt right now.”
The Internet, email, electronic newsletters and social media have killed much of the traditional business that was once the mainstay of commercial printers. Flyers, brochures, newsletters and other printed material can be emailed to customers and constituents for free now.
Image: Glenmore Custom Print and Packaging general manager James Rowley with some of the six-pack packaging his company has created | Rob Kruyt
But as James Rowley points out, there will always be a need for boxes and packaging, and the company’s survival and growth have a lot to do with its shift towards packaging.
“From the beginning of the recession to now, we’ve grown from about 5% of our business being packaging to probably about 60% of our business,” he said.
The company has invested in technology such as carton-folding equipment and cold foil printing machines. Foil is the thin aluminum coating that gives the sheen to high-end gift cards and gift boxes. One of Glenmore’s more successful campaigns has been with B.C. craft brewers. The company makes six-pack cartons for eight craft brewers.
They’re no ordinary cardboard six-pack cartons, however, but look more like fancy gift boxes – something you’d put a birthday or Christmas present in. The company is so proud of the designs that it sponsored a special art show on Vancouver Island in March to show them off.
“This is definitely a new market that we’re going into, and what makes this really, really unique is that we’re the only people in B.C. who offer this service,” James Rowley said.
The company’s work has earned it four awards with the Foil and Specialty Effects Association.
In addition to cold foil printing, Glenmore offers customized extras such as scented ink – something it used on one of its own promotions.
“We printed a doughnut, and it was doughnut-scented ink on top of it,” James Rowley said. “When the customer would scratch it and smell it, it would smell like doughnut vanilla smell. When we were printing it, the whole printing plant smelled like Dairy Queen.” •
