Western Sydney-based folding carton manufacturer United Printing & Packaging (UPP) is known to be a specialist in the premium end of the folding carton category.

Its managing director and owner Said Khoury took to the recent ProPack Packaging Forum to share his story after making the decision to leave his job in the labels category to buy UPP. Khoury saw the opportunity in folding cartons, even though he had an extensive background in the labels space.

“Around 2013, after about 17 years working for a major labels company, I felt like I needed to challenge myself and make a move in a different direction in my career. After thinking about it for a little bit, I realised the only way that I was going to be able to utilise my skills, learn new things, and get my career to the next level was to go out on my own,” he said.

“I felt like there was a major opportunity in folding cartons. I loved that specific market segment. I saw further opportunities in the pharmaceutical area, amongst a few others, and basically looked for a small sheet-fed printer to buy, which then, over a period of time, I could convert into a folding carton manufacturing facility.”

However, Khoury’s wishes didn’t come true as there were no businesses that suited what he was looking for, for sale at that point in time. So, he started looking around and found a small company, UPP, and reached out to its owner.

“I made a cold call, set up a meeting with the owner, and within 15 minutes, asked him if he was interested in selling the business. He was turning 65 the year I met him, and had no exit strategy. I said, ‘so what if the right offer came around? Would you consider it?’ He said he might. Four months later, I ended up buying the business from him,” Khoury said.

According to Khoury, the first 12 months were very important in taking the business to the next level.

“The previous owner had been in business for just over 30 years and the business’ turnover was about $2.5 million at that time. That was comfortable for him. But for me, I had to double the turnover within the first 12 to 18 months to make it work. That was very challenging with a small business that only employed eight people,” he said.

“I really wanted to focus on the folding carton market, and as a starting point gear up the company to supply the pharmaceutical market segment. So, we made the announcement to the staff that we were going to let go of commercial print work – which was roughly half the sales of the company (folding cartons was probably about a third of the sales).

“The majority of the equipment was suitable as a starting point. Probably about the eighth month in business, around August/September 2014, the cash was being drained as I’d spent some money on equipment. There was no further borrowing available. The tap was dripping in terms of new clients coming on board, but it wasn’t dripping enough.

“But suddenly, within a couple of months towards the end of the year, the floodgates opened. We worked through the Christmas period. We started employing new people in January, and the rest is history.”

Fast forward to today, the company has a full in-house capability, and has for the past eight years, been doing everything – from structural design to pre-press, printing, die cutting and gluing – within its premises.

Khoury invested heavily in multi-function gluing equipment that suit the pharmaceutical market for unique inspections of pharmaceutical cartons. Its latest acquisition, and biggest investment to date, is a Koenig & Bauer Rapida 76.

“While we offer no minimum order quantity, the additional productivity and efficiency from the Rapida 76 and its ability to run at 16000 sheets an hour means we can tap into medium to high volume work where we could not compete previously,” Khoury said.

“The Koenig & Bauer Rapida 76 was the right press for us as it allows us to deliver folding carton work with precision and consistency which is paramount for our premium and boutique clients. A huge part of our decision was also with support first and machine second.

“The technology on the press was important, but we chose Koenig & Bauer because of the service and support we receive from local engineers based here on the ground in Sydney.”

The inaugural ProPack Packaging Forum would not be possible without the support from its sponsors:
Platinum Sponsor – Durst Oceania
Gold Sponsor – Cyber 
Gold Sponsor – Miraclon 
Bronze Sponsor – Hybrid Software 
Bronze Sponsor – Kissel & Wolf 
Bronze Sponsor – Koenig & Bauer