Page 34 - Print21 Nov-Dec 2019

Company Profile
Lindy Hughson
Soaring ahead
Third-generation family business Soar Print is arguably one of New Zealand’s longest standing and most successful commercial printers, with a string of acquisitions
and accolades to support this claim. On the eve of the company’s centenary year, Print21 publisher Lindy Hughson sits down with its managing director Fred Soar to talk about strategic decisions and 2020-and-beyond vision.
That this is a business steeped in history is evident the moment I enter Soar Print’s Auckland premises
for my meeting with the man at
the helm, Fred Soar. The walls around the reception area are adorned with graphics that tell the captivating story of the company’s early beginnings, dating back to 1920 when Fred’s grandfather, his namesake, set up shop printing business cards and ferry timetables, among other items.
One poster relays the story of Fred Soar Senior going off to the Second World War, leaving his wife Edna to run the printing business: “Every weekend she bikes from Seacliffe Road in Hillsborough to Onehunga, sometimes with a child riding pillion. Edna operates the printing press and manages the books, assisted by one typesetter.”
Fred Senior returned from war
a Lieutenant Colonel and stepped back into civilian life as a printer until 1965, when he passed away, and his son Harry (Fred Junior’s father) took over the family firm. The economy was tough, so Harry ran Soar Print during the day and set headlines for the New Zealand Herald at night, a job he held for 17 years. Harry’s hard work financed a buying trip to the 1972 drupa trade fair in Germany, where
he purchased one of the first Heidelberg GTOs to be installed in New Zealand. This marked a major change for the business, shifting focus from letterpress to offset printing, and came with a move into new purpose-built premises.
Rapid growth
The business grew steadily under Harry’s watchful eye, but it soon became evident it was time for the next generation to step up. In the 1990s, Fred Junior’s sisters Jenny Carter and Vicky Soar joined the company, and today remain as directors. Fred, who had ventured into accounting and manufacturing roles after university, joined the business a few years later, following
a stint at blue chip multinational Johnson & Johnson. He brought his newly honed skills in finance and manufacturing processes, and almost immediately initiated the company’s certification in the global quality assurance standard, ISO 9001.
“We don’t have to answer to shareholders or private equity stakeholders. We are the masters of our own destiny.” – Fred Soar
Buoyed by young blood, the 1990s proved a busy decade for Soar Print, which snapped up three printing companies in relatively quick succession: Spectrum Offset and Quadrant Print in 1993; Terrafirma Marketing in 1996;
and Impex Press in 1999.
“The acquisition of Impex Press was the catalyst for our move to
the site we’re on today, and saw another step change in volume for our business,” says Fred Soar. “It was about increasing volume and creating economies of scale.”
In line with this strategy, in the decade that followed, the company went on to buy CC Multiprint in 2002; Moir Johnson in 2003; Bailey Printing in 2005; and Hollands Printing in 2006.
Digital pioneer
Meanwhile, printing technology
was advancing apace, and true to its motto “leading the new era of print”, Soar Print was not to be left behind.
“In 2004 we installed our first HP Indigo press – one of the first HP Indigo Generation 3 series able to deliver print quality closer to offset. We were one of the first commercial printers in New Zealand to take up digital, and we’ve never looked back,” says Soar. Later the company would go on to pioneer digital label printing in New Zealand with its investment in the HP Indigo WS4600, since upgraded to a WS6800.
By Fred’s own admission, digital label printing has been a “slow burn” and it took three years to see any ROI, but today it’s a valuable niche for the business with “plenty of room to grow” across labels and shrink applications.
Growth for digital is spurred on by the proliferation of SKUs in the food and beverage market, and the explosion of artisan brands, with brand owners requiring short run packaging and labelling solutions, Fred says.
Off the back of this growth, Soar Print has also ventured into digital pouch printing, working with pouch converters to deliver a high-quality printed solution where previously customers were applying labels to the pouches.
Technology range
Embracing digital technology was one part of a multi-pronged approach.
In 2010, emerging from a few tough years brought on by the GFC, Soar
34 Print21 NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 2019