Never Bored with Board

Curtis Packaging Caters to Needs of Clients With Innovative Suppliers and KBA Presses

By M. GraceMaselli

"The package is the silent salesperson on the shelf," says Don Droppo, Jr., vice president of marketing and sales of the nearly 160-year-old Curtis Packaging Corporation of Sandy Hook, CT.

Started in 1845 as a maker and purveyor of elegant, distinctive combs and buttons, Curtis Packaging later produced the specialized packaging required for its wares. This twist of business fate shifted the company's direction to folding carton and package manufacturing exclusively. In the 1980s, the last of the Curtis lineage sold the business, and by the end of the decade it was bought by Don Droppo, Sr., Curtis president and CEO, and the rest, as they say, is history.

According to Droppo Jr.'s account of Curtis' business ethos, the company continues in the tradition adopted long ago — that is, a comprehensive approach to meeting its clients carton and packaging needs. Or more specifically, "We endeavor to manufacture the best paperboard carton in the country ... in the world," as Curtis literature pointedly offers.

Certainly it's a claim backed by the equipment required to take on such an elevated business objective. "In the last seven years we've spent about $20 million in capital investments," Droppo says of the high-end folding carton company which specializes in the cosmetics, health care, pharmaceutical, and liquor categories, among others.

Curtis prides itself in finding solutions for its clients, matching the right supplier to each consumer goods client for win-win results. Recently, Estée Lauder challenged a few of their folding carton suppliers to create a more environmentally friendly substrate for their Origins brand. Origins was founded on strong environmental stewardship principles, but had been producing cartons with only 20% post-consumer content.

The Curtis team went into high gear researching paper mills throughout the world that could simulate Origins' look and feel while achieving their environmental goals. Curtis' digging unearthed a fine paper mill that offered a substrate composed of 75% post-consumer-recycled, chlorine-free board made with wind power. The challenge was that the paper mill only produced lighter weight cover stocks, not strong paperboard needed to convert a folding carton. Through countless iterations of paperboard, Curtis created a new stock that is not only strong and bright white, but it is completely environment-conscious.

As it turned out, the Origins solution ended up costing Estée Lauder 15% less. "We really accomplished what they were looking to do," Droppo says, proud when Curtis can drive something new and unique into the marketplace.

Sonny Edwards, Curtis' prepress manager and employee of 25 years, explains the company's success — evidenced by a 20% hike in sales last year: "We do everything in-house. This gives us a lot of flexibility and quick turnaround because we don't have to rely on outside vendors. We do it all, from structural package design to the graphic design that goes into that. We generate files for printing plates, print, emboss, glue and pack."

About 20% of the time, Curtis is involved in all aspects of package structure and design from the outset, whether a scenario unfolds as a launch of an entirely new product or a product upgrade. "The majority of the time, especially in the consumer goods industry," Droppo says, "customers have a pretty good idea of what they want. In such cases we suggest ways to improve a package's look or cut costs. You have to read the client and adapt to their needs; we can give them full service, or just some pointers. The key is to talk about what they expect."

Flanked by the competition

Paramount in such a conversation is the somewhat elusive notion that a package contains more than the actual product. "The package is really the key to the company's brand and image — their identity on the shelf," Droppo asserts. So much so, in fact, that Curtis makes its point by going out and buying its clients' competitors' goods, then showcasing them alongside a pending design on a mock store shelf in the Curtis conference room. "We always talk in terms of the client's brand and how they want it to stand out," Droppo says.

Adds Edwards, "We present all our applications and substrates, and our graphics and structural packaging professionals sit down and discuss particulars and options with clients. If the client wants to, we can sit down and work with them from the beginning."

According to Edwards, "Sometimes we have customers who come to the table with a full concept. So we sit around the table with experts from each of our departments to have a dialogue about how to see an idea through production," If there's a disconnection between the desire for a particular result and its production feasibility, Curtis professionals will provide alternative design options. "We suggest to the client that he or she will have a better end result if a different approach is taken," Edwards adds. "If you can sway a customer to bend a little by demonstrating that they'll be happier in the end, that can be a persuasive point."

He cites a particular example. "We helped a gourmet cookie manufacturer create a concept from scratch," Edwards says. In this case the client wanted to conjure a "country-style" notion of wholesome cookies — one that would best be depicted in the client's mind by an illustration of a cookie rather than a photograph. Initially the job required the illustration of three different types of cookies. Before the last cookie sketch was completed a month and half later, however, Curtis designed 23 cookie variations done in Photoshop. "They were all printed with a matte varnish," Edwards says, "Each version looked exactly the way the customer wanted it to. The product just sold itself."

There are multiple offerings available to customers that serve to verify Curtis' all-under-one-roof spirit of doing business. Among them are the aforementioned teams of master structural and graphic designers who fill these on-site departments, says Droppo, a young man who recently worked for a Berkshire Hathaway subsidiary in Boston, MA. Don started at his father's company early on as a high school student unloading 18-wheelers, and being involved with material handling and scheduling.

"Our prepress department is completely computer-to-plate and has been for more than four years," Droppo details, adding, "And we have all the latest technology — Mac G5s loaded with the most recent versions of creative software." Curtis has its own ink labs on site with subcontracted technicians who can mix samplings of litho and flexo inks to suit the most discerning need.

This is particularly important given the serious power on the pressroom floor: two large-format KBA Rapida 130 presses — a 38" x 51" eight-color unit and a 38" x 51" seven-color unit. The large-format presses, hybrids manufactured to operate with both lithographic and flexographic printing technologies, allow Curtis to get 73% more printing area than a standard size press, according to Droppo.

"Foils are our forte, we print millions of sheets a month," says Edwards. In particular, a signature product at the company is CurtCHOME, a trademarked mock foil that uses a cost-effective layering of inks to simulate the real thing. Droppo explains that the eight-color KBA Rapida starts a press run first with a dispersion coater that can lay down CurtCHROME, or alternatively, a heavy metallic ink. This is followed by eight additional colors all done in one shot, Droppo says. The seven-color press, bought in 2002, doesn't have the first dispersion unit but is equipped with a coater at the back end.

Shiny, happy clients

A particular happy customer anecdote helps to illustrate CurtCHROME's attraction. "We did a job for a health and beauty client not too long ago," Droppo says. "They wanted to manufacture a foil carton, then cover about 75% of it in black ink. When we sat down with them to see their design, we said, 'Gee, you're spending lots of money to turn around and cover something that will cost a lot.' So we told them we could use flexo to spot-cover what they wanted to appear as foil with CurtCHROME on SBS board. In the end we saved our client a huge 25% in production cost by going this route."

Another instance of satisfaction is represented by a 600,000-piece packaging job for a high-end cosmetics client. Curtis poured resources into R&D to create a successful single pass for the packaging designed with three coatings: high-gloss, matte, and something known as an "interference" coating. The job, which also involved a complex patterned image, needed to be meticulously registered for clarity and maximum impact. "It became a huge success because we were able to create the look of iridescence our client wanted without the expense that using iridescent foils would have meant," Droppo explains.

Both large-format presses, but especially the eight-color dispersion unit, have helped Curtis keep pace with the widely publicized experience of tightening customer deadlines. "We're being asked to reduce lead times as much as we can," Droppo notes. "But the good news is our make-ready times are compressed, and our diecutting and gluing are fast. Our presses can do upwards of 15,000 sheets per hour."

Like other essential packaging and carton manufacturing components, die manufacturing is done on the premises in a fully equipped department that includes a machine to mill the wood and a digital knife bender to conform steel rules to precise specifications. "We're never going to tell a customer 'FedEx hasn't delivered your die.'" Droppo assures. "Before, a die that might have taken 10 hours to make now takes one hour. Our equipment drastically reduces manufacturing time."

Investments in the right equipment, a staff of 155 people, and keeping a keen ear attuned to customers go a long way toward explaining Curtis' longevity and growth. "We've hired new salespeople, we keep adding new equipment," Droppo says of the well-considered strategy, "So our efficiencies get better and our capacity goes up."