Anthony Locicero, Associate Editor01.21.20
Rose City Label president Scott Pillsbury considers himself a “flexo guy.”
“We were a flexo shop when I joined the company,” he said. “I love flexo and I’m a flexo guy from way back…”
But Rose City, located in Portland, OR, has seen “tremendous” growth after adopting digital printing.
“We’ve always had hot stamping, foil stamping and we’ve really just doubled down on that, but really the big difference has been digital,” he said. “Digital has less waste, it has a lot of benefits in that particular direction.”
The company uses Toyo Ink inks and, according to production manager Jim Arrey, communication is the most important factor in choosing an ink supplier.
“Today, customers’ expectations have much shorter lead times than ever before in the age of Amazon Prime,” he said. “It is key when we submit for a quote or want pricing on a custom color, it is crucial to our business that they respond quickly for the customer may have a drop-dead date they bottle or package their products so timing is everything.
“We don’t ever see us going back to three- or four-week lead times, if we can help it, for our quick turn times are what keeps the customers coming back and they tell us so in regards to their past label suppliers.”
Rose City is a fourth-generation company, with Pillsbury’s family the second owner of the more than 90-year-old company. His father bought the business in the early 1970s.
“With printing,” Pillsbury said, “he saw a good opportunity and he was able to put some common sense to it and really make this little business hum.”
The elder Pillsbury remained with the company until his death 20 years ago.
“My sister [Whitney] and I kind of ascended to the throne, if you will, kind of unexpectedly, sooner than we would’ve expected,” said Pillsbury, who joined the company roughly a half-century ago. “Whitney came in the summer of 1993 and I joined in January of ‘94 and we both worked in the shop and did shipping, rewind, and I made plates and worked a little bit in graphics because we were getting our first Macintosh computer.
“We were both working in sales when my father passed away, so we kind of made our way around the building and figured out how to find customers. And we’ve both kind of gravitated to our own spots,” he continued.
When business slowed down in 2008, “we had to tighten the belt a little bit,” Pillsbury said.
“We had to look at things more critically and not just bumble along doing what we’d always done,” he continued.
“In 2009, our revenue actually went down but we had our costs in line and we were paying attention,” he added. “Then in 2010, we saw a nice little uptick and we bought a Primera, a little tabletop printer and plotter/cutter and we said, ‘Let’s see who buys digital labels.’
“It was a modest investment but it was something new and something different, and it was nice for the employees to see we were investing in the business moving forward,” the company president said. “That went well and it was busy, so we bought another one. The bottleneck became the die-cutting, so we bought a semi-rotary die-cutter that would run at 80 fpm instead of 5 fpm and then we bought our first Indigo press at the end of 2014. That has been somewhat of a game-changer.”
The company has since upgraded to an HP Indigo 6900.
In 2015, Rose City earned an Excellence in Family Business Award from Oregon State University.
In 2018, the company earned the TLMI Calvin Frost Environmental Leadership Award.
Rose City creates labels for customers in the wine and beer industry, as well as others in the food and drink realm.
But with a move by many craft brewers from bottles to cans, Rose City looked elsewhere.
“Probably our largest growth industry is cannabis,” Pillsbury said. “The beer cans killed the beer business for us and we replaced that with cannabis products, and that’s been good for us. It’s fun because it’s kind of the Wild West.
“It’s a legitimate business with really sophisticated packaging.”
But in the end, “We do a little bit of everything for everybody,” Pillsbury concluded.
“We were a flexo shop when I joined the company,” he said. “I love flexo and I’m a flexo guy from way back…”
But Rose City, located in Portland, OR, has seen “tremendous” growth after adopting digital printing.
“We’ve always had hot stamping, foil stamping and we’ve really just doubled down on that, but really the big difference has been digital,” he said. “Digital has less waste, it has a lot of benefits in that particular direction.”
The company uses Toyo Ink inks and, according to production manager Jim Arrey, communication is the most important factor in choosing an ink supplier.
“Today, customers’ expectations have much shorter lead times than ever before in the age of Amazon Prime,” he said. “It is key when we submit for a quote or want pricing on a custom color, it is crucial to our business that they respond quickly for the customer may have a drop-dead date they bottle or package their products so timing is everything.
“We don’t ever see us going back to three- or four-week lead times, if we can help it, for our quick turn times are what keeps the customers coming back and they tell us so in regards to their past label suppliers.”
Rose City is a fourth-generation company, with Pillsbury’s family the second owner of the more than 90-year-old company. His father bought the business in the early 1970s.
“With printing,” Pillsbury said, “he saw a good opportunity and he was able to put some common sense to it and really make this little business hum.”
The elder Pillsbury remained with the company until his death 20 years ago.
“My sister [Whitney] and I kind of ascended to the throne, if you will, kind of unexpectedly, sooner than we would’ve expected,” said Pillsbury, who joined the company roughly a half-century ago. “Whitney came in the summer of 1993 and I joined in January of ‘94 and we both worked in the shop and did shipping, rewind, and I made plates and worked a little bit in graphics because we were getting our first Macintosh computer.
“We were both working in sales when my father passed away, so we kind of made our way around the building and figured out how to find customers. And we’ve both kind of gravitated to our own spots,” he continued.
When business slowed down in 2008, “we had to tighten the belt a little bit,” Pillsbury said.
“We had to look at things more critically and not just bumble along doing what we’d always done,” he continued.
“In 2009, our revenue actually went down but we had our costs in line and we were paying attention,” he added. “Then in 2010, we saw a nice little uptick and we bought a Primera, a little tabletop printer and plotter/cutter and we said, ‘Let’s see who buys digital labels.’
“It was a modest investment but it was something new and something different, and it was nice for the employees to see we were investing in the business moving forward,” the company president said. “That went well and it was busy, so we bought another one. The bottleneck became the die-cutting, so we bought a semi-rotary die-cutter that would run at 80 fpm instead of 5 fpm and then we bought our first Indigo press at the end of 2014. That has been somewhat of a game-changer.”
The company has since upgraded to an HP Indigo 6900.
In 2015, Rose City earned an Excellence in Family Business Award from Oregon State University.
In 2018, the company earned the TLMI Calvin Frost Environmental Leadership Award.
Rose City creates labels for customers in the wine and beer industry, as well as others in the food and drink realm.
But with a move by many craft brewers from bottles to cans, Rose City looked elsewhere.
“Probably our largest growth industry is cannabis,” Pillsbury said. “The beer cans killed the beer business for us and we replaced that with cannabis products, and that’s been good for us. It’s fun because it’s kind of the Wild West.
“It’s a legitimate business with really sophisticated packaging.”
But in the end, “We do a little bit of everything for everybody,” Pillsbury concluded.