Americk Packaging adds Adare Advantage to their impressive portfolio.

Americk Packaging has completed the acquisition of Suffolk based Adare Advantage. The deal completed on November 12th and adds a variety of new products and impressive artwork services to its growing portfolio.

The addition of this site will see the group hit €140m in sales revenue by year end and inherit some innovative products such as; the Electronic Article Surveillance solution along with the independent artwork and content management system. A service already used by a variety of clients including global brands.

Adare Advantage now branded Americk Advantage is located in Haverhill, Suffolk and employs 110 production, sales and office staff. As an established labels and flexible printer in recent years under the leadership of Managing Director David Mills, Advantage have diversified into artwork services, security labelling and recycled packaging including containers and lidding films.

The acquisition will complement the existing flexible packaging, labels and carton businesses under the Americk banner, increasing the range of products available to a European customer base.

Patrick Doran Chief Executive of Americk Packaging comments. “The acquisition of Adare Advantage will add a new dimension to Americk Packaging. The core strengths of the business and its successful track record of year on year growth is a credit to the management team all of whom will continue to run the business. The diverse product portfolio will complement our group strategy and intention to offer market-leading supply of a wide range of packaging solutions. The addition of the service will add real value to our existing customer base as we roll it out across the group.”

Americk Advantage Managing Director David Mills adds. “This is a tremendous opportunity for our business, staff and customers. With the backing of Americk Packaging our vision to continue to develop innovative solutions and meet the challenges and demands of the industry is a mouth-watering prospect. We are already sharing with our customers how this announcement will add value and enhance the service they already enjoy.”

Robert Whiteside the Adare Group CEO commented. “Adare Group’s strategic focus is the provision of marketing and essential communications services through our core businesses, Adare International and the recently formed Adare SEC (the integration of Kalamazoo and Adare Limited which became effective on 1st November 2015).

As part of a strategic review of our activities it was clear that as a packaging specialist, Adare Advantage would fit better as part of a packaging group and so we are extremely pleased that Adare Advantage will become part of Americk Packaging who have vast knowledge of the industry, an impressive infrastructure and ambitious plans for Adare Advantage as part of the Americk Packaging group. We wish them every success in the future, and I would also like to thank Livingstone Partners for their first class handling of the transaction on our behalf”

The following weeks will see the transition from the Adare Advantage brand to Americk Advantage.

Americk Packaging consists of Americk ASP Flexibles, Americk Marchmont, Americk Primopost, Americk Webtech and Americk Systems Labelling. All contributing specialist expertise in carton, produce packaging, flexibles, reel-fed labels and self-adhesive label manufacturing.

In the recent MTAA blog ‘World Wide Personalisation’ the trend in personalised packaging was mentioned. What wasn’t covered was Americk Packaging Group’s involvement in some of the memorable campaigns that have run in recent years.

Share a coke
In 2013, Americk Packaging’s Lough Erne site (formerly Webtech) was chosen to be one of the five conventional label printers involved in the ‘Share a Coke’ campaign. They worked closely with their digital print partner in order to create the bespoke labels. This project was unlike any other the company had previously undertaken, especially in the respect that they had to work cooperatively with some of their competitors. This was a necessity in order to achieve such a mammoth task, as it was far too large a project for one printer to achieve – over 1 billion custom labels were printed across Europe alone.

Interesting facts about Coke:

- Over 40 hours went into matching the famous Coca-cola red for digital print.
- The project required Six bottling partners; five conventional label printers; seven digital printers.
- Eight different label sizes were produced for 375-ml, 500-ml and 1-liter PET bottles

In 2014, the soft drink giant A.G BARR were the proud sponsors of the Glasgow 2014 Commonwealth games where they ran a campaign which saw 57 different tartan patterns created and printed on their Irn-Bru bottles. Americk were the proud company working in conjunction with a third party and thanks to the expertise gained from previous bespoke campaigns were chosen to coordinate and lead the project and print the labels.

Adrian Troy, Head of Marketing at AG Barr said: ‘Whether you’re 100 per cent Scottish or just have a dash of ginger in your family tree, Bru’s Your Clan gives people the chance to check out their roots, sport their clan colours a and make Irn-Bru their own.’

IRN-BRU’s personalised tartan
This was not the first time A.G BARR had ran a personalised campaign, after the launch of the Share-a-coke campaign IRN-BRU ran their own parody scottish version which saw the likes of ‘Tam’, ‘Senga’, ‘Rab’ and ‘Fanny’, the latter which is currently being used in their TV advertising.

Interesting facts about Irn-Bru:

- Irn-Bru is the third best selling soft drink in the UK
- The Irn-Bru name came about in July 1946, when a change in laws dictated a re-branding, as the drink is not physically brewed.
- Only three people in the whole world reportedly know the recipe to make Irn-Bru