Page 14 - Food and Drink Business Magazine May 2019

COVER STORY
Adaptability drives Matthews’ rebrand
For Matthews Australasia, a company rebrand reflects its continual
evolution to be best-in-class in intelligent identification and industry leadership. As the news was announced, Food & Drink Business caught up with
CEO Mark Dingley about what this represents in the company’s future.
FOUR decades ago, Matthews Australasia was a new company striking out on its own with leading-edge solutions to code and label products.
Today, the second-generation, family-owned business is arguably the Australian leader in traceability, inspection and intelligent product- identification solutions. Technology underlies every aspect of its business operations.
When the company launched its rebranding at AUSPACK in March, Food & Drink Business and sister publication PKN Packaging News’ publisher, Lindy Hughson spoke with Matthews’ CEO Mark Dingley.
“Technology, digital processes, and workflows are
integral to our solutions for customers, but they are also inherent to our own processes as well as the way we interact with customers,” Dingley says.
“We’re really about information-driven manufacturing – for us, for customers. Our customers are the ‘makers and movers’ of Australia. Their output is essential to the Australian economy, so we’re about looking for ways to help them drive efficiency, accuracy and transparency through cost- effective processes right throughout their supply chains.”
It was the realisation of just how much technology was a part of the company that drove the recent re-brand.
ADAPTING THE ADAPTER
“Re-branding was something we considered for quite a while,” Dingley says. “We introduced our chameleon brand way back in 2001. In the two decades since, it’s become synonymous with integrated intelligent identification, quality products and support.
“It represented then, as it does now, something we do well: and that is adapt. Adapt to the marketplace. Adapt to our customers’ changing needs. One of the chameleon’s unique characteristics is its ability to make changes to reflect its environment.
“Think how Matthews has evolved from a ‘coding and labelling company’ to where
we are today – our own environment has changed with IoT, smart factories and Industry 4.0 being very much a part of business and manufacturing moving forward.
“As a supplier of intelligent identification solutions, we’re constantly adapting to the market environment because that’s what our customers need.
“The chameleon has been our branding for half our company’s existence. So rather than toss it out and begin again, losing the connection with its fantastic meaning and history, we ‘adapted the adapter’ and made the chameleon a totally contemporary reflection of Matthews. This not only brings it into line with who Matthews is today, but also, importantly, tomorrow.
THE FOUR CS
Dingley says Matthews’ focus has remained on helping customers to gain business intelligence, not just attain compliance, through technology.
“And because there is so much more to product identification today, Matthews has four types of solutions we offer customers: code; check; capture; and care,” Dingley says.
“Coding and labelling have been around for a long time, but we constantly make sure we offer the best-in-class solutions across all coding and labelling product platforms.
“Check is all about our vision inspection, metal detection, X-ray, barcode scanning and checkweighing solutions, to ensure products are of quality and are safe.
“Capture is our unique software platforms, such as our
14 | Food&Drink business | May 2019 | www.foodanddrinkbusiness.com.au