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VIRGINIA BEACH, VA, October 31, 2019 — Since being featured as a Company to Watch in 2015, Fortis Solutions Group has not rested on its laurels. According to John Wynne, CEO of Fortis Solutions Group, the company has grown considerably in that timespan. The company’s name is designed to emphasize its breadth of services. Fortis translates to “strong” in Latin, while Solutions account for its proactive, value-added services. Group acknowledges the team’s multi-site and multi-faceted capabilities.

In October 2015, the company occupied four locations and had just rebranded as Fortis Solutions Group. Shortly after the feature, however, Fortis Solutions Group acquired Farmland Print Plant in Kansas City, MO. The acquisitions did not stop there, though.

“During 2016, we were focused on integrating three 2015 acquisitions (Color Craft Label, Kopco Graphics, and Farmland) and building our team,” explains Wynne, who entered the business in 2010 with the acquisition of Labels Unlimited in Virginia Beach, VA. “In 2017, we acquired Action Packaging Systems, which extended our presence from five to seven locations and built upon our opportunities to serve customers nationwide. In early 2018, we acquired Lewis Label, which provided us with a location in Texas while adding shrink sleeves and additional flexible packaging to our product capabilities.”

In November 2018, Fortis Solutions Group acquired Premier Georgia Labels and Packaging, adding folding carton capabilities, and Austin Label, furthering opportunities in the food and wine and spirits end-markets. At the end of 2018, the company added Infinite Packaging Group, which bolstered the Fortis Solutions Group presence in shrink sleeves and the Texas market while adding a new location in Oklahoma. Most recently, Fortis acquired Label Technology in Merced, CA, providing the company with a West Coast presence while strengthening its flexible packaging and pressure-sensitive offerings.

Fortis Solutions Group now employs over 725 team members across 14 locations, utilizing a fleet of flexographic and digital presses. Fortis has taken significant steps to provide new employees with additional investment, benefits (attractive wages, 401k match, a profit share plan, educational reimbursement, and healthcare) and opportunities for upward mobility across the Group.

“Our operations have grown considerably in the last nine years, driven by 10 strategic acquisitions and consistent organic growth,” says Wynne. “We take a different approach from traditional acquirers, who typically seek to consolidate functions like estimating, customer service and prepress into one location. Instead, we embrace local representation in each of these areas, recognizing they are the touchpoints that made our acquired businesses so successful. In short, we focus on being excellent, ongoing stewards of our acquired businesses while supporting their growth by leveraging our combined best practices, capital resources, and vendor relationships.”

At Fortis Solutions Group, the employees are the lifeblood of the business. The company has established its “One Fortis” initiative, which unites the business on internal and external levels in a harmonized approach to provide the best customer service. “We have fundamentally been able to grow based on the strength of our employees,” says Wynne. “All of our employees are united as ‘One Fortis’ to provide an outstanding experience for our customers. This strength and shared purpose are at the heart of our company. Our employees are the company’s most valuable resource, carrying our brand message of ‘Show Up Strong’ to the marketplace. It doesn’t matter which location a customer engages, we are One Fortis with the power and strength of all our sites, the creativity and ingenuity of all our people and all the capabilities of all our locations.”

Fortis Solutions Group’s newest site represents a departure from many of the company’s other acquisitions. This Napa, CA site is Fortis’ first greenfield startup, and it is designed to provide specific benefits to customers in the region. Fortis launched this facility in September 2019.

“Our customers in the wine and spirits industries have repeatedly told us there is a need for a local, agile, high-quality, customer-focused label printer,” notes Wynne. “Rather than acquire an existing business, we were able to bring together a very strong team with extensive experience and build a facility from the ground up around our customer-centric values. In keeping with our national yet local approach, we found a great location in Napa to serve our local customers while also being able to offer an additional market segment to our national customers.”

Fortis Solutions Group is certainly no stranger to investing in itself. The company supports its sales and operational initiatives with millions of dollars on an annual basis. Its equipment additions include wider, servo-driven flexo presses, digital presses, butt splicers and turrets for further efficiency gains. On the software side, Fortis utilizes EFI’s Radius ERP system across its footprint, as well as Esko’s prepress software at each of its facilities.

“Both of these systems, along with a proprietary internal software tool, minimize touches within our workflow, allowing for quicker speed to market,” explains Wynne. “This fall, we are excited to launch a Customer Portal that will allow our clients seamless access to their artwork, invoices, inventory, and orders. Fortis Solutions Group provides an entire system of support to give both our customers and their customers a powerful advantage in the marketplace.”

In the future, Fortis Solutions Group will continue to explore organic growth and acquisitions. “We like the trajectory of our business and will continue to invest in our people, as well as growth initiatives,” says Wynne, adding how Fortis revolves its growth strategy around end-market diversification, product diversification, and geographic diversification. For example, end-market diversification is designed to bolster the company’s food customer base with additional higher growth markets, while product diversification furthers Fortis’ pressure-sensitive (prime, coupon, booklets), folding carton, shrink and flexible packaging product lines.

Fortis Solutions Group will continue to keep an eye on advancements in LED, inkjet, and digital flexo hybrid technologies. “We are committed to outstanding customer service and will continue to innovate and invest alongside our customers to ensure they’re able to achieve their goals in the marketplace,” adds Wynne.

Fortis Solutions Group Blog

Watch any current show about Los Angeles, and you’re bound to hear jokes about what people eat. Instead of a burger, someone might order a vegan, soy-free, organic bean patty — hold the bun — with a side of emulsified organic produce (some might call this “juice”). As entertaining as it may be to poke fun at the diets of the rich and famous, L.A. isn’t the only city upping its intake of organic foods; in fact, global sales indicate consumers are increasingly filling their shopping carts with more natural products.

In 2016, shoppers around the globe spent approximately $90 billion on organic foods, with the U.S. overwhelmingly shelling out the most, Statista reports. The USDA attributes a lot of that growth in the U.S. to the increasing availability of organic products. As of 2017, the USDA estimated that 20,000 natural grocers and about three out of every four popular chains (such as Kroger, Albertson’s, and WinCo) carry organic food and beverages.

So, who’s responsible for selling most of this food?

You might think the answer is small farms, the kinds you see with booths at your local farmers market; however, you’d be wrong. The reality is that massive corporations like PepsiCo and General Mills — the same companies that sell you sugary soft drinks and Pillsbury pastries —are dominating the organic and natural foods market.

In 2015, Phil Howard, an associate professor at Michigan State University, compiled a list of 92 organic and natural brands, such as Annie’s Homegrown and Earthbound Farm, and which major corporations, like General Mills or WhiteWave Foods, owned them (The Washington Post assembled the data in an interactive graphic).

Here’s a quick breakdown of who owns who (some of which are not listed in Howard’s data):

• General Mills: Food Should Taste Good, Annie’s Homegrown, Muir Glen, and Cascadian Farm
• WhiteWave Foods: Earthbound Farm, Horizon Organic, Silk, and Vega
• PepsiCo: Naked Juice, Sabra, Smartfood, KeVita, and Bare
• Hain Celestial Group: Earth’s Best Organic, Imagine, Ella’s Kitchen, MaraNatha, and Greek Gods

Other major corporations dominating the field include Coca-Cola, Kellogg, J.M. Smucker, and ConAgra and Ralcorp.

If any of that information surprised you, it’s because these corporations try to keep their involvement in the organics food business from the public eye, Howard told The Washington Post.

“Nearly all of the top 100 food processors in North America that have acquired organic brands hide this ownership. The exceptions are Hain Celestial and WhiteWave, which focus primarily on natural and organic products,” he said. “Organic consumers are more distrustful of conventional food corporations, which are quite far from the pastoral image that many organic brands use in their marketing.”

Not every well-known organic brand has sold to a major corporation, though. Amy’s Kitchen, Clif Bar, Eden Foods, Organic Valley, and Nature’s Path are some of the independently owned companies in the market, according to the Food Revolution Network.

Why is it important to know all of this?

There are a variety of reasons people might want to know which corporations own their favorite natural foods. For instance, consumers may want to distance themselves from brands that sell products with high-fructose corn syrup or may feel more morally comfortable supporting small family farms. According to a study from Label Insight, 73% of consumers said brand transparency and trust were critical factors in shaping their shopping habits — even if it meant they’d pay more for specific products.

Howard offered another reason to The Post: Large companies sometimes pressure the USDA National Organic Program (NOP) “to weaken the national organic standards to increase profits.” While many agencies and organizations offer insight to the USDA NOP and call out bad practices, big companies still occasionally violate standards outlined in the Organic Food Production Act (OFPA) by slipping in nonorganic ingredients or spraying their produce with certain antibiotics.

On the flip side, Howard noted that increased organic foods availability could be useful for shoppers who desire these products at lower price points. The acquisitions may also impact some of these companies’ non-organic items. For example, Nestle told The New York Times in 2018 that it’d be cutting the amount of sugar in its products by up to 40 percent.

How can smaller brands compete?

It may seem pointless to try to compete against companies like Kellogg, but that doesn’t seem to be the case with consumers. A 2018 Futerra survey found that 88 percent of respondents wanted brands to help them “be more environmentally friendly and ethical” — and they’re not just talking about industry Goliaths. Small brands can also capitalize on that desire by offering consumers transparent information about farming and production practices on their sites and on their labels.

A brand may have the most inspirational backstory and mission, but how will consumers know if they can’t recognize the product? Great marketing begins with attention-catching — and change-making — packaging, whether brands opt for sustainable pouches made from compostable materials or pressure sensitive labels that support recycling.

Interested in learning how your brand can make waves in the organic and natural foods market? Contact us via email or phone for a personalized consultation to see which packaging options would best support your business.

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A dieline serves as the template for how the final packaging will be printed and formed to contain your product.

Maybe you have a package you really like that you want to replicate. We can take that package apart and determine where the folds are and where graphics can be located. If you have an existing dieline we will look it over and make sure nothing is missing which may cause manufacturing problems. If you don’t have an existing package or dieline, we will work with you and your co-packer to define the optimal dieline for your product.

As you can imagine, this process has to take into account what equipment the product will be packaged on, so we work closely with equipment manufacturers or co-packers during this step.

For example, there are little boxes on all packaging called “eyemarks” (see illustration.) They serve to tell the packaging equipment when to cut the film. Eyemarks differ in size, location, and color depending on the equipment and graphics.

If you are developing a new product and already working with a graphic designer, be sure to involve the printer and packager early in the process. That way we can ensure the design “fits” the dieline!

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I bet you thought it was!

How many times have you looked at some piece of plastic and not known whether you can recycle it or not? If it has a code like the one above then it’s recyclable – right? Is the cap supposed to be thrown away? What about a blister pack, that is plastic and paper, is that recyclable? Even people who work in the recycling industry are confused at times! We all know there are codes on plastics but did you know those codes were never meant to be recycling codes? Those codes are simply resin codes, identifying the type of polymer the plastic was made from. They actually do not tell a consumer if the item can be recycled.

There is a trend to standardize recycling information on packaging so you won’t have to wonder: the package will tell you if your item can be recycled, where it can be recycled and how to prepare for recycling. How2Recycle’s mission is to get more materials in the recycling bin by taking the guesswork out. Started as a project of the Sustainable Packaging Coalition, How2Recycle recommended icons are now being adopted by multi-national brands like P&G, General Mills, Target and Walmart.

Determining if your waste can be recycled in your community should be easy and How2Recycle supports that mission. Take some time to learn about recycling in your area. First review the information at How2Recycle and GreenBlue.org, then check with your local community what can be recycled and where, and finally let brands know your appreciation for adding How2Recycle information to their labels and packaging. And reduce, reuse, recycle!

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If you are in the market for packaging for a new product, you might think that finding a designer and designing the package is the obvious first step. And while it is, it is also very important that you ensure that the designer you select is well versed in designing packaging AND understands the related printing and packaging processes.

A packaging designer is very different from a graphic artist who works on printed marketing collateral or a digital ad. A good packaging designer knows the ins and outs of designing for the printing process, they understand how to maintain your brand across many different substrate types, and they understand the various kinds of packaging processes. They have to take in consideration things like “Will this graphic element be hidden when the package goes from 1D to 3D? Will the seal fold to the left or right? Can the printer reproduce my design on the selected substrate?”

For example, you want a bright neon color on a brown kraft paper substrate for your wrapper for your new energy bar. Remember, what may look great on the screen or in a PDF does not always translate to a final printed product. If you and your designer have discussed this ahead of time with the printer you will probably learn that the neon color will wash out on a kraft substrate and you will not get the effect you were looking for. Involving the printer early in the design process allows you and your designer to decide on something that can be reproduced on press.

Designing a package is not a linear process, with lots of questions and considerations that must be taken into account by everyone involved. If you do not want to be disappointed in your package, take the time to develop relationships within the complete manufacturing process before you fall in love with a design. In the end this kind of collaboration will deliver a spectacular result.

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A label is a label is a label. Unfortunately, not. Every application requires a set of
questions to be answered to determine the best label for your product.

When specifying a label, it’s best to start with “what do I want the label to do?” for
example: I want it to be automatically applied to a plastic tub and then frozen. After use, I want the label to be cleanly removed for easy recycling of the container. Or, I need a label to be stuck to a cardboard box so that it can be shipped to China.

Once you know all that you want the label to do, you can start answering the questions that will determine the face stock, adhesive, liner and finishing method.

• What does the label stick to? Wood, paper, corrugated box, glass, plastic?
• What is the shape of the container? Flat, round, tapered?
• Is the surface smooth, rough, how rough?
• What temperature is the container at the time of application? Ambient,
refrigerated, frozen?
• Are there any additional conditions? Wet, frosty, dusty?
• Will the labels be applied by hand, label gun, or machine?
• Will the unwind direction matter? Which side needs to lead off of the edge of the
liner?
• If it is machine applied, will it be high speed and need a special liner?
• How does the label need to perform? Last forever, be removable, survive harsh
conditions?
• Are there any special features needed? Barcode Peel outs, non-adhesive areas,
perforations?

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