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The ground that Sidac has chosen to corner its market is clear and simple: offer solutions in the field of flexible packaging & labeling, with reduced times and competitive prices. And this thanks to a principle of sustainability that embraces skills, production means and the environment. The word of GD Luca Mazzotti.  Stefano Lavorini

It was July 2017 when, thanks to an operation of Private Equity, the desire to ensure Sidac, a historic Forlì-based company in the flexible packaging sector ... “a future of strong growth and expansion” was announced.

Promoter as well as investor in the undertaking was Orienta Partners who brought together a group of Italian entrepreneurs and investors as well as Indigo Capital French Private Equity Fund, and purchased 100% of the company from the ACMAR group, as part of  the arrangement with its creditors.
After just over 18 months the numbers vouch for what was stated in the introduction: turnover of 308 million euros in 2018, up 13.4% compared to the previous year, a growth of 18.1%.

Figures which are in themselves good, which can be considered excellent in the light of the scenario in which they matured. The year just ended is in fact the first under the full administration of the new corporate structure that, during 2018, gave rise to a series of investments in machinery and computerization of the logistics department. Hence, a series of extraordinary interventions were carried out within the various sections without affecting  production capacity.

 Blood, sweat and... smiles
«Founded in 1929 by Count Paolo Orsi Mangelli, in 2005 Sidac went through a period of crisis and had to close down: It was losing 3 million euros a year, with a turnover of about 18 million euro». This is how the general manager Luca Mazzotti described the situation, while he showed me the work in progress in the company.
«I was called upon by the owners at the time to make an extreme rescue attempt: I accepted the challenge and started a general restructuring process that brought the company back to making profits and investments within four years.
First we bought a laminator, which we have already sold and replaced with a new one; subsequently we updated one of the two rotogravure printing lines, replacing all the electronics. And then... we have not stopped since».

Today the situation is in fact completely different, dynamic and positive: the lamination department, which is state-of-the-art, has 5 Nordmeccanica duplex machines, of which the latest installed at the end of 2018, operating in a controlled contamination environment, with double doors, positive air pressure and constant air conditioning to allow the correct cross-linking of the glue etc.

«On the other hand, the phase of flexible laminating of materials over the years has become increasingly important, even when compared to printing, especially when it comes to complex structures» stresses Mazzotti. «We have not skimped and we chose duplex laminating machines, considering the increasingly smaller  production batches that are required, in particular, from private labels».
Indeed Sidac’s advantage seems to be precisely in the diversification of processing and offer: from simple structures, to triple and quadruple laminations, to pasteurizable or sterilizable materials.
And not only because Sidac also means roll fed and sleeve labels, both stretch and shrink: a true and proper division that generates a turnover of about 4 million euros, showing sturdy growth.

Roto or flexo, as long as it is “sustainable”
Sidac is one of the few Italian companies that has the dual printing technology in a single plant. A new ten-color Rotomec rotogravure was recently installed (at the beginning of 2019), which supports two Schiavi lines, with nine and eight colors, but there are also two recent eight and ten color flexo machines.
And here we come to the vexed question that, on my provocation, Mazzotti tackled head on.

«In my opinion, quality in flexo costs more than quality in gravure. This is why the sales practices of flexible packaging should be reviewed: if an end user wants the lowest price he must then be prepared not to dispute the slightest imperfections. Instead, it is customary to “sell” flexo printing at lower prices than gravure printing, even when high quality or long runs are requested. Here greater clarity is needed».
The fact is that the customer always has the last word and the converter has the task of doing his job as best they can, also in terms of respect for the environment.
Precisely for this reason Sidac equipped itself four years ago with a fine solvent recovery plant (a six million euro investment) with 3 distillation columns, which not only enables the recovery of ethyl acetate but also flexo alcohols. «We recover everything - summarizes Mazzotti - hence we are also well-placed in terms of being ‘green’».

Work in progress
The Sidac works covers an area of 25 thousand square meters, of which about 13 thousand are covered and in this moment in time many spaces look like building sites: Everything is changing a bit.
In order not to miss anything, the dedicated areas have been reorganized and restructured, on the one hand,  as a compactable warehouse for semi-finished items and, on the other, for the storage of the cylinders in transit (the real warehouse for about 16 thousand cylinders is in fact external), as my “guide” explains.

«We are increasing storage capacity - says Mazzotti - to meet future needs. But other important interventions concern the logistics of the cutting department, or the arrangement of the four machines we have available, the last of which is currently being installed: we are completely changing the flows, to make them faster, more dynamic, easier.
There are 120 employees, including 6 people in the quality control laboratory, but we are recruiting new staff to ensure that everything works well, avoiding inefficiencies due to a lack of materials or overlapping tasks».