Mactac has been incredibly active over recent years, developing new products, touting sustainability, and announcing acquisitions designed to grow the company’s reach. To learn more about the latest initiatives at Mactac, L&NW talked to Ed LaForge, president and CEO.

L&NW: The last three years have been daunting yet Mactac emerged stronger. What was your strategy?
EL: The industry faced insurmountable challenges the past three years. It’s been a very difficult market with the pandemic, supply chain constraints, paper mills closing, and a dramatic drop in demand, to mention a few of the challenges.

To remain strong, Mactac focused on our North American customers and markets. We remained true to our core values, we did what was right for our business and our customers’ businesses, and we leaned into a tough market. Where others might have pulled back, we pushed ahead. We expanded our product portfolios, service offerings and technologies. We supported our North American customer base by increasing our onshore capability during a critical time of global supply chain constraints. And we turned our attention to growth initiatives, making investments and acquisitions in support of future market needs.

L&NW:  How much growth has Mactac had?
EL: Mactac has been on a path of tremendous growth. We’ve made four industry-advancing acquisitions in three years. In 2021, we acquired Duramark Products, formally Ritrama USA, expanding our technology, adhesive formulation capabilities, and production capacity to make us one of the largest, most diversified PSA suppliers in North America.

In 2022, we brought on Spinnaker Coating, LLC, creating a one-of-a-kind, world-class specialty labeling company. We also purchased CSI – SoCal, a custom slitting and distribution center in Ontario, CA, that gave us a high-performing, turnkey operation with newer world-class slitting assets.

This year, we acquired roll label distributor, Label Supply, expanding our geographic reach in the Canadian market to service more customers throughout Eastern Canada. We also continue to expand our operations in Mexico, recently adding a new distribution center and new coating and slitting equipment.

L&NW:  How does this growth benefit customers?
EL: Each growth initiative was based on increasing the product portfolio, service and reliability of supply within the North American market. Customers benefit from an enhanced product and adhesive portfolio, services, supply chain continuity and added reliability. Our integrated North American manufacturing and distribution footprint is 40% larger than it was a few years ago. We intentionally have 16 slitting and distribution sites across North America to expand service to our customers.

Our experienced teams, advanced adhesive technologies and state-of-the-art assets provide manufacturing efficiency, capacity and service reliability, while expanding doors to innovation. We produce high volumes of consistent, quality core products, ensuring customers have what they need, when they need it. Our specialty product, custom coat and service offering allows our customers to expand their businesses within niche markets and applications. With high speed and specialty coating capability, combined with the broadest adhesive technology platform, we can provide the market solutions to fulfill almost any need.

L&NW: What is the value of doing business with Mactac?
EL: Achieving success in your forward movements. Caring about our employees, customers, suppliers, vendors and other partners is a key part of our culture. Our people are the biggest difference-maker in doing business with Mactac. We value team experience, knowledge and stability.

We have a long-term business perspective that allows us to put what is good for our customers’ success at the forefront. You can expect us to continue to aggressively invest in our teams, manufacturing capabilities, customers, and the North American market.

As an example, we’ve been upgrading our enterprise resource planning (ERP) system to improve our IT infrastructure and connections with customers and suppliers. But we’ve been doing it over an expanded period of time at a higher cost to assure we minimize the impact on customers, associated with many failed ERP installs. 

L&NW: If you could tell your customers one thing about Mactac today, what would it be?
EL: You are with the right company. We are strong and steadfast, yet flexible and agile. Yes, you see us aggressively growing but in a mutually beneficial way with our customers and employees, keeping our values and who we are. We are globally supported by our pressure-sensitive parent company, Lintec, but remain focused on our North American customers and markets.