The art of making a virtue out of necessity
Laminati Cavanna or how to live intelligently from one day to the next… The history of the company (and of its founder), a rare if not unique industrial concern specialised in the “strange” job of laminating flexible film on contract, teaches us just this.
It has been repeated to us that producing means organizing, method, programming. Principles that work well for everyone but all the more so for someone forced to deal with a market that is often “unpredictable” that imposes max. flexibility. This seems to be the destiny of Laminati Cavanna SpA, the important historic concern, almost one of a kind, that operates in the field of laminating plastic film for flexible packaging for the food, pharmaceutical and technical sector, working on contract for the main Italian converters. Almost half a century of experience behind the scenes of a world that has grown massively in technological, applicative and market terms, going from cellophane monofilm for bagging products to a more sophisticated, high barrier, sterilisable structures.
An evolution inevitably geared to that of the company, the history of which tells us how, acting as the sector “first aid” station, nothing has really changed over the years.
Flexibility in flexibles
And hence since 1969, year in which Giancarlo Cavanna started up his own business in a small shop in Piacenza: today, at the gates of the very same city, the company is housed in 3 buildings, covering a total of 8 thousand square metres. Little fuss and a lot of attention to substance, or that is doing one’s job well, objective which the people in the company have in common, starting from the founder to go on to the other members of the family (Alessandra, Giuseppe and Anna Paola who among other things is the current vicepresident of the Istituto Italiano Imballaggio). The works is divided up into 4 areas respectively covering solvent lamination, solventless lamination, slitting and storage.
«We in fact look after a single phase in producing flexible packaging, that of lamination, or that is - spreading a layer of glue, we combine 2 or more films of different materials. The main material is obviously plastic but we also work paper and a lot of aluminium, because it offers the best barrier to light and gas, despite the price and the difficulty of working with gauges that reach 6.3 microns» the founder explains.
«We do not print, if not very rarely, monocolor solid bases or small wording, because this would mean competing with our customers, these being the converters. We also don’t do much slitting, to the point where we have seven laminators (Schiavi, Normeccanica, Rotomec) and only one slitter (a typical converter would have a laminator and three slitters, Ed.)». In Laminati Cavanna hence they do an unusual job that requires a special approach: «As well as packaging food, over the years we have started branching out into other sectors of use like cosmetics, pharmaceutical, but also technical applications like PV and credit cards.
«2015 was indeed a good year - Anna Paola says - but also when work peaked, we never planned ahead more than few days.
And indeed since we work on contract, we have to wait for the converters to deliver us the printed material, and this compels us to be very flexible and rapid in our response. We have several different types of customers: from those who do not own a laminator to the well structured ones, who resort to our services to compensate heavy work loads or to carry out specific processes, like for example solventless lamination. In both cases we are in a position to program our production well. There are then converters equipped with laminators, who only turn to us, because they fear they would not be able to manage their own delivery times with their own customers.
That is to say, we always have to be ready for everything, and our ability stands in offering the best timely solution for each specific situation, constantly dialoguing in a relationship of faith with our customers. More information means less problems: we have proof of this».
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Everything starts from one man A man of the people, Giancarlo Cavanna, has a strong character, humble but aware of his value, to the point where he was able to become architect of his own destiny and that of the company. The reason why Giancarlo explains well himself: «In my times I was hungry...we were all hungry, but this does not mean we all became entrepreneurs. Its not only a question of courage and capacity, but of happenstance». Born in 1940 into family of 9 children, Giancarlo was orphaned young and, at 12 years of age, entered into the the college of the “Pia società San Paolo” di Alba (publisher among other things of the Catholic weekly Famiglia Cristiana), where he learned the trade of typesetter. In 1958 he was offered a job in this capacity by Achille Castagna (founder of today’s Castagna Univel*) and two years after that, following on from the resignation of the at that time head, he became department head, responsible for flexographic and gravure printing.  In those days, flexible packaging was mainly made out of cellophane monofilm, and this up until the machine for laminating cellophane with polyethylene arrived in the company. Thanks to the new laminator, Castagna began working on contract for other concerns in the sector, like Silces of Arenzano.«When I entered the company I earned 480 lire a day; not being part of a family, for a meal at the Priest’s refectory I spent 260 lire and hence I had to get by in some way, and so I was very enterprising». Young, with no one to cover for him, but not for this willing to resort to compromises, in 1969 Giancarlo gave up his job to branch out on his own. And thus, after having drawn a laminating machine on a notepad, with 3 million lire severance pay, he got Fausto Gasperini, founder of Nordmeccanica, to build it. After 3 months he began production in a small shop in Piacenza. The starting concept was very simple, as Giancarlo sincerely recalls «to get to starting a “true” converting company that printed and laminated, capital was needed that I just didn’t have. Hence I opted for working on contract, where investments in raw material, means of production (print machines and slitters) and organization» are not really needed. But the surprises do not stop here. His having gone through a tough year, one evening Achille Castagna turned up at his workshop: «Speaking in dialect he asked me how the business was doing. Nothing more. But in fact the next day, he sent me a truckload of printed material that needed laminating». hus things proceeded, marked by the constant purchase of new machines. «I bought the first Schiavi laminator via “payment by instalments through work”, as was written on the contract; I bought the second Schiavi signing, with my hands trembling, a 100 million lire cheque, a figure a lot higher than the turnover of those years. And then came the Nordmeccanica solventless machine, that which, initially should have only been a solventless laminating machine to be inserted in an existing line…». Tanti sono gli aneddoti che riaffiorano alla memoria di Giancarlo, con al centro l’ “ex-padrone“ con cui, se non fosse prematuramente scomparso, avrebbe dovuto entrare in società per avviare una nuova attività. * The name Castagna Univel seems to have been invented by the founder from the single veil, saranized and sealable cellophane that at the beginning the company imported, with great success, from America.
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