Posted August 5, 2014
By Devin Steele
GASTONIA, N.C. – Since its founding in 1982, Conitex Sonoco has become a household name in the textile industry.
Most likely, you know the company as a producer of paper cones and tubes for yarn applications. You probably are also aware that the company has expanded its reach over the years into high-performance corrugated pallets and FIBC (flexible intermediate bulk container) bags.
But did you know the company also provides label solutions for various applications? That’s right. For eight years now, Conitex Sonoco has offered a full line of printers, printer/applicators, label creation software, custom printed labels and tags, stock label programs and labeling solutions for a number of industries, including textiles. Printer support and service after the customer purchase is a unique offering as well. The company’s labeling systems offerings and knowledge run deep.
Conitex Sonoco provides these products and services to several U.S. yarn production companies as well as to other sectors. And though it’s a small part of the business, it’s an important part, according to David Monteith, the company’s Vice President of the Americas.
“Not only does the label business allow the company to expand its product line, but it also provides another way of serving customers and nurturing relationships,” he said. “The label business is one of those things that a lot of people take for granted until they experience a printer or label application problem. And it’s very technical, but we have the expertise to offer these solutions.”
Conitex Sonoco provides label solutions, too
Russ Horne
Enter Russ Horne. He IS that expertise. As manager of the division, he brings more than 30 years of experience providing label solutions, which is a major reason Conitex Sonoco added this business in 2006, Monteith said.
At the time, Horne was running his own business selling labeling solutions to the textile industry, including many of the same companies Conitex Sonoco was calling on. In fact, many of the labels he was selling were being applied to Conitex Sonoco’s cones and tubes.
“We knew Russ and we knew that, technically, he was very good,” Monteith said. “And we wanted to expand within the textile business, which we are very passionate about. It was at a time when a lot of people had given up on the textile industry, but we felt just the opposite. We felt there were still very good companies in the industry and we wanted to support those companies more.”
So Conitex Sonoco approached Horne about buying his business and joining the company to run that area. At first, Horne was reluctant because he had a good thing going as an entrepreneur, he said. But it has worked out very well, he said.
Indeed, it was a “good fit.” Monteith said. “We were able to grow that label business fairly quickly the first couple of years by having Russ join us. Russ has been in the business a long time and has specialized in textiles, so he knows exactly what that customer needs.”
Consider it something of a cross-pollination between Conitex Sonoco’s sales team and the label area.
“Our sales people can open the door, and Russ can come in and give them the recommendation they need (for labeling),” Monteith said. “He really knows what he’s doing, so the customer develops that confidence in us because of his technical ability.”
Horne’s primary specialty has always been labeling for the textile industry, starting in the late 1970s at Soabar, an Avery Dennison Company in Louisville, Ky. And, even while working for different companies, he has had several of his current yarn-production customers since the early 1980s, he said.
At Conitex Sonoco, textiles represent the lion’s share of label customers. But under Horne’s leadership, the label area has expanded to the food, vending and grocery business, along with other areas requiring technical applications.
Examples of label applications are point of sale, product identification, RFID (radio frequency identification) and compliance labels. For these applications, Conitex Sonoco offers hardware such as thermal transfer printers and printer applicators; labels of any variety; tags with a reinforcement patch and eyelet, single- or double-wired, attached strings, multi-part tags and consecutive numbers with or without barcodes; label creation software; thermal/transfer ribbon; and printer and software support.
One of the most exciting aspects of the job is coming up with customized solutions to customer problems, Horne said. For example, one customer’s labels were falling off their cotton bales, and he worked with his partners to develop specialty adhesive to replace an incorrect adhesive on a label.
And Conitex Sonoco’s 2012 acquisition of Bulk Sak International, an FIBC provider in Malvern, Ark., has offered other opportunities for Horne to develop customized solutions, Monteith said.
“It’s one thing to just stick a label on a box,” he said. “But when you are applying this label to woven polypropylene or coated materials, the technical aspects of that adhesive are very important. And Russ has seen just about every application out there, so he pretty quickly developed a solution for that application.”
Providing such solutions and working with an established company has been a win-win, Horne said.
“Conitex Sonoco is like me,” he said. “They try to give their customers the best service possible and they understand customers’ urgency – and they respond to that urgency. That's why we’ve had these accounts for as long as we’ve had.”