This article first appeared in the February 2025 issue of ProPack.pro

Steven Todisco, owner of Victoria- based Affinity Print, has great plans for his company, and has been executing them one step at a time. Most recently, the company celebrated 50 years in operation, and a move into a new, larger facility which houses modern investment in folding carton machinery.

Affinity Print is a packaging company that provides its clients with a point of difference, out of the box thinking, and quality excellence in offset and digital packaging.

With a full end-to-end-solution, it specialises in fast turnarounds and short-run, high-end packaging, by running on digital, offset, and UV printing complemented by a full bindery.

The company states its point of difference is its ability to offer embellishing and finishing services in-house. It is also proud of its environmental accreditation and impact on the environment, having been certified with Eco Warranty EMS.

Some of its more prominent areas of play are in the beverage, pharmaceutical, and beauty packaging segments.

Todisco himself is no stranger to the printing and packaging industry. He comes from a family that has a long history in print, and great expertise in the trade.

As a second-generation printer, Todisco started his career at Cleveland Printing, which was owned by his father, Ralph Todisco. Fast forward to 2005, and after stints in several other printing companies, Todisco decided it was time for him to stand on his own two feet – he became the owner of Affinity Print, which was created in 1973.

“I have more than 30 years’ of experience in the print industry, having worked at several different companies. I have gone from working for my family’s print business to running my own,” Todisco said.

“Affinity Print’s first owner, Terry, had passed on and the two people that took over it pretty much ran it into the ground. I then bought Affinity Print from the duo in 2005, and we went from printing one business card order a week to becoming a high-end boutique packaging company.”

From commercial to packaging

The transition from commercial printing into the packaging space was a natural transition for Todisco and the team at Affinity Print.

“Packaging was a market that we knew could be our expertise. Moving into this space was a natural progression for us – the commercial market was shrinking year-on-year, so we made the decision to get into packaging. We’ve been in packaging ever since, and our growth has just been consistent and continuous,” he said.

“Affinity is one of the few printers in the country to run a full in-house packaging solution, with foiling, embossing, coating, and UV capabilities.”

Affinity Print, which employs 20 staff, excluding casuals, is also one of a few companies that produces bedding labels in the country.

“That segment has become one of the areas of our specialisation, and we have brought new technology in to modernise that space – it used old-school offset printing methods which we have now modernised with digital printing and foiling,” he said.

The company also amped up its specialisation in UV printing, especially bumper labels and printing on plastics, with the purchase of Cain Colour in July 2020.

“We bought Cain Colour as an add-on – to have UV capabilities for our packaging. Cain Colour ran offset presses, but in its case specialised in UV printing. Having Cain Colour in our fold has boosted Affinity Print’s capacity and capabilities,” he said.

Seeing elevated levels of growth

Just four years after the acquisition of Cain Colour, Affinity Print has been subject to growth on a tremendous scale, and as a result, needed to move into a bigger premises.

“When we started, we had a small, 300 sqm factory. Today, we’ve moved into an 1800 sqm factory that’s 10 minutes down the road from our old factory in Cranbourne West,” Todisco said.

“We were on the hunt for a bigger factory for some time, as we needed a unit that was of a particular size and had the power to keep our machines going. What this new factory also meant, was it allowed us to upgrade our machinery expand our inventory in packaging.”

The scale of projects that Affinity Print has been able to produce has also improved.

“One of our biggest clients, for example, came to us with a concept and a few containers, and we ended up putting spot UV on it, in addition to gloss, foiling and shape cutting. And it also had a specialised closure on it. This client – a multi-national company – was very impressed with our capabilities,” he said.

“We’re also in the midst of creating some interesting packaging projects for a Singapore-based company and will be shipping it over soon – we’ve got plenty of clients worldwide to keep Affinity busy.”

And now, having turned 50 years old this year, Affinity Print is celebrating its many milestones, with Todisco saying there are more to come and that the industry can definitely expect more from the business.

“While the industry is slowing, we are growing. This factory is a new place for us to call home for the next chapter, and it’s very exciting times for the business,” he said.

“Turning 50 is a huge milestone for us, because not many businesses reach that stage these days. That’s because they don’t keep up with technology, or they don’t move forward with time. Businesses turning 50 years of age, these days, are going to be few and far between – other than the big multinationals.

“We want to enhance our customers’ experience with us, and this forms an integral part of our continuous improvement to quality assurance.

We are also actively managing our impact on the environment in key areas including resource usage, landfill and greenhouse gas emissions, as our commitment is to reduce our environmental footprint,” Todisco said.

“Our size and investment in state-of-the-art equipment means we can offer our clients fast quote turnarounds, client focussed account management, high levels of project understanding, on-time delivery, online ordering, and electronic or hard proofing.

“We also have a solution for the provision of online services, and the process efficiencies this provides in the areas of web-to-print, ordering, warehousing and distribution of collateral.

“What we can offer the market is of the same level, if not better, than some of the ‘big boys’, which is fantastic for a family-run company.”