Folding up value

Paper converters flowering into a dominant local industry

Story by Sean Fitzgerald

 AS CONSUMERS – AND EVEN as businesses who use products to accomplish our day-to-day tasks – it’s often taken for granted how many converted paper products we come in contact with on a daily basis. Even on an hourly basis.

In fact, Converting Influence Executive Director Susan Stansbury once assembled a “24 minutes with converted paper products” promotional list to demonstrate just how easily one can come into contact with 24 converted products in as little as 24 minutes.

Just as easily as one might take the converted products they use every day for granted, so too, is the recognition that so many of these converted paper products may very well have had some processing right here in the New North region.

With the historical tradition, glitz and glamour of the paper industry in northeast Wisconsin, converters have often been a quiet and humble industry among Wisconsin’s manufacturing portfolio. To the surprise of many northeast Wisconsin residents, Green Bay, the Fox Cities, Oshkosh all the way south to Chicago represents a converting corridor which is the U.S. hot spot for converting products like tissues, labels, foil laminated pouches, wipes, napkins and wall paper, among so many other products we use every day. Add to the equation allied companies who manufacture machinery used in converting processes, distributors of inks and solvents, and a myriad of other freelance professionals who contract their services for converters, and the industry mushrooms to tens of thousands of jobs in the state and hundreds of millions of dollars in annual payroll.

But the strength of this line up of converters in the region isn’t always recognized because so many companies are quiet contract converters working to deliver products for their large national brand partners, said Stansbury, who spent more than two decades as a marketing executive for a variety of Wisconsin-based converters before going into private consulting.

Likewise, the strength of the industry often goes unnoticed because there are few resources available to provide industry-specific visibility and data regarding employment and economic impact of converting operations locally and statewide, largely because there hadn’t been much of a centralized industry group until Converting Influence formed in 2006. Now, the more than 100-member strong group of converters and allied companies is bringing a greater level of training, communication and exposure to Wisconsin’s converting industry.

What is converting?

WHAT IS CONVERTING? It’s taking mill roll of paper, film, foil or nonwoven materials and adding one or more manufacturing processes to add value to the product. Finished products result in a variety of products we use every day – moistened floor wipes, bandages, diapers, toilet paper, disposable hand towels, blank name tags, and the packaging for most of these products represent just a short list.

The manufacturing processes employed by converters vary, including rewinding and slitting, sheeting, folding, flexo printing and coating, as the most common examples (see sidebar at right for detailed definitions of these processes). In many cases, a combination of these processes is needed to finish a product for the retail store shelves.

One of the primary reasons the region evolved into such a hotbed for converters was the heavy concentration of nearby mills providing the various substrates used in converting. These substrates include three major groups: papers, such as tissue, office paper, corrugate for boxes or construction paper; nonwovens, which are more complexly manufactured sheets used for a variety of purposes such as laminates, mattress pads, vinyl backing, or filters, as examples; and films such as polyethylene, polypropylene or polyesters suited for various kinds of packaging.

But there are other reasons the region has become the heart of the converting industry, all trailing back to the rich history of the paper industry in the region.

“Many converters have been formed by people with previous expertise in papermaking and large industry corporations,” Stansbury said. “These people saw opportunities that were not realized, abandoned or not large enough for the big mills to pursue or service well.”

In fact, some of the biggest entrepreneurial successes in Wisconsin manufacturing are converters who were spun off their expertise from paper mills and started up converting operations.

Backed with the expertise of engineers, suppliers and managers from the paper industry, converting is also supported by technical college training, including cutting-edge programs at both Fox Valley and Northeast Wisconsin technical colleges.

In addition, large mills often outsource smaller orders to converters when it’s inefficient to produce short-run orders. Converters are typically known for their flexibility, lean operations, and fast turnaround services, Stansbury said.

Ease of convenience

THE GROWTH WHICH HAS OCCURRED among converters has come primarily as a result of the convenience offered by the products manufactured. Chief among those convenience factors is the disposability of those products after they’re used. Think of the ease of disposable diapers versus cloth diapers

Or paper napkins compared with linen. Or a thin-flexible tissue hospital gown versus a cotton gown that’s been previously worn by hundreds of other patients and then laundered.

Since such products are a one-time use, there’s generally a greater guarantee of their sanitization, which make them ideal for medical settings. Those products produced for medical use – such as the medical patient drapes produced by Graham Medical in Green Bay – are required by the federal Food & Drug Administration to be manufactured in highly controlled environments with a heavy volume of air exchange to ensure products are free of any bacteria.

Even though a number of converted products are intended for one-time use, luxury and quality don’t have to be compromised.

Hoffmaster Group in Oshkosh, for example, produces its branded Linen-Like napkins in a tidy package wrapped around disposable cutlery. This CaterWrap product is perfect for caterers to save time and money preparing a large, luxurious meal for a special event, said Cindy Herbert, vice president of marketing at Hoffmaster.

“It’s an advantage to our customers because it’s a single-use, disposable product that’s premium,” Herbert said. She indicated the 3-year-old product line allows caterers to replace the “hidden” costs associated with traditional linens wrapped around tableware, including the time spent neatly wrapping the cutlery and the costs of collecting and laundering the traditional linens each time they’re used.

Hoffmaster, which built its reputation decades ago on tissue-based napkins and was the first to come to the market with decorator colors for such napkins, has found substantial demand for its Linen-Like product line. The air-blown substrate looks and feels like linen, but offers a disposable characteristic to its napkins, placemats and table covers. Sales of the Linen-Like product lines have grown double digits for Hoffmaster in the past couple of years, Herbert said.

Tissue segment converters are especially strong here in northeast Wisconsin, according to Stansbury. She cited companies like American Custom Converting of Green Bay, which manufactures painter’s drop cloths, or Precision Paper Converters of Kaukauna, which produces its own “Sniffles” brand facial tissues, offering products providing convenience to the end user. Moistened wipes – for cleaning a baby’s bottom after a fresh diaper change or for cleaning up around the home or shop – have surged in production and sales in recent years.

“Wet wipes alone comprise huge markets growing much faster than paper markets, with some segments growing more than 10 percent per year in household surface cleaning and skin cleansing and cosmetic markets,” Stansbury said.

Building influence

JUST INTO ITS THIRD YEAR NOW, Converting Influence has evolved into an association for more than 100 companies based in the Green Bay-to-Chicago corridor that are either directly involved in some aspect of converting, or provide products and services directly to the converting industry.

The group – headed up by industry veterans Stansbury and Tom Gazdik, a mechanical engineer with a background on the equipment manufacturing side of the industry – aims to provide greater visibility and foster stronger networking ties within the region’s converting industry.

Prior to first coming together in 2006, converters really had no central industry group to help owners and managers connect with one another to share best practices, collaborate in bringing new products to market, and to grow the awareness of their company and its capabilities. In many respects, converters mostly had to fend for themselves when it came to marketing and business development, said Gazdik, a co-executive director of Converting Influence with Stansbury.

“What we began to realize is that no one (among national and global converters) really knew what was happening in Wisconsin,” Gazdik said. “Each small manufacturer was doing their own marketing. And we found there were a number of companies here in the area who really needed each other.”

Currently the organization – which primarily represents Wisconsin-based companies – provides news and information to its membership through meetings, online listings and email. The group’s second annual industry expo, held this past March at Lambeau Field in Green Bay, attracted more than 75 exhibitors sharing new products and best practices within their own niche in the converting world.

Such gatherings present enormous opportunity for attendees because of the fact that Wisconsin’s converting industry is among the most diverse in the world, Stansbury said, and many converters are accustomed to working with one another’s capabilities to produce finished products.

Converting Influence also provides members with a handful of less formal conferences each year, with displays, networking and informative presentations. Last month, for example, the group met at Fox Valley Technical College in Appleton and presented two professional development seminars to attendees. Some of the attendees at events such as these sponsored by Converting Influence indicated they discovered more business opportunities than they did at similar events hosted by national trade groups.

“We’re looking to get the message out more thoroughly in Wisconsin about the strength of these companies,” Gazdik said.

The future looks bright for converters in northeast Wisconsin and the entire Green Bay-to-Chicago corridor. With literally unlimited product possibilities, converters are running more new product trials, exploring product variations, and innovating for next-generation and “green” products, according to Stansbury.

Hoffmaster, for example, is incorporating environmental and green awareness into its growth strategy moving forward, Herbert said.

“We’re making sure we can offer our customers products that are ecologically sound,” she said, noting disposables are conducive to growth in the billion dollar food industry. “It’s a big industry and it has a lot of needs.”