With the news of its latest landmark investment in HP Indigo 76cm-wide digital printing technology, ePac Flexible Packaging has taken the opportunity to outline some of the successes that it has achieved with its business model and investment strategy.

ePac and HP have recently signed a deal for 24 additional HP Indigo 20000 digital presses, breaking ePac’s own previous record as the largest packaging deal to date for HP. The previous record was set last year with an order for 20 20000s.

Since then, ePac has continued to expand its footprint, both in its home territory of the US and into Canada and Europe. ePac UK is to shortly commence operations as the first site under ePac Holdings Europe. The latest investment will further this, as ePac continues to work to disrupt the global flexible packaging market in 2020 and beyond, and present new opportunities to small and medium-size businesses (SMBs) as well as larger consumer packaged goods companies (CPGs).

Founded in May 2016 as a Greenfield business with one HP Indigo 20000 press, ePac cites itself as having grown exponentially. Since the beginning of 2019, it claims to have more than doubled its customer base and today serves more than 5,000 customers, with 75 percent placing repeat orders.

‘The meteoric rise of ePac and its business model based on HP Indigo digital printing technology in just a few years is truly amazing,’ opines Santi Morera, general manager and global head of the GSB business unit at HP. ‘Thanks to the continued collaboration between HP and ePac, brands of all sizes can obtain high-quality, digitally printed flexible packaging in quick turnaround times, with low minimum orders, high variation and personalisation options.’

ePac’s key markets include coffee, pet food, nutritional supplements, snacks, health and beauty, organic foods, cheese and dairy, and bakery products.

ePac CMO Carl Joachim says, ‘Our customers love the advantages of working with an eco-conscious, community-based packaging partner and the financial impact of fast time to market with the ability to order to demand.’

Such customers taking advantage of the capabilities of HP digital printing technology to reinvent their businesses include Sock Fancy, a worldwide sock subscription service delivering monthly to customers. Stefan Lewinger, Sock Fancy founder and CEO, explains, ‘The big reason we switched to ePac was personalisation. Nobody else could do this type of high-level customisation. With other companies you have to order tens of thousands of one SKU.’

Another customer is Granarly, a granola snack company, whose founder Morgan Potts notes, ‘Since we received the ePac bags, we’ve grown tenfold, and it’s all because of the packaging.’

Smackin’ Snacks, a company producing sunflower seeds for sporting events, notes the low minimum quantity and fast lead times as being, ‘great for a small company and allowing us to have multiple SKUs in a single order,’ according to Cole Schaefer, its founder.

Nutrition sports drink company Skratch Labs gave its support to the EF Education First Pro Cycling team competing in the Tour de France earlier this year through limited edition digitally printed packaging. These were produced by ePac at its site in Boulder, Colorado, and Elliot Freeman, vice president of marketing at Skratch Labs, says, ‘ePac technology and digital printing enables us to order short runs of unique limited edition packaging with HP Mosaic software, which gives us an edge over the competition.’

Johnny Hobeika, managing director at ePac Holdings Europe, is presenting at this month’s Digital Print for Brand Success conference on 21 November in London. For more information and to book your place, visit www.digitalbrandconf.com