TLMI’s Eugene Singer Award 2022 Winners Announced

At the Tag and Label Manufacturers Institute, Inc. (TLMI) in-person Converter Meeting held March 2023 in St. Petersburg, FL, the winners of this year’s Eugene Singer Award for Management Excellence were revealed.

The Singer Award is one of the North American narrow-web industry’s most prestigious and highest honors. The awards are celebrated and presented at the organization’s annual Converter Meeting.

Each year, the awards are decided, based on criteria derived through participation in the TLMI Management Ratio Report, designed to assist converters in evaluating their own company’s performance relative to other tag and label manufacturers in the industry. The Ratio Study uses a set of financial ratios and percentages to represent broad performance “yardsticks” against which a participant company’s operating results can be measured, rather than absolute dollars.

To be considered for the Singer Award, TLMI converter members submit a series of growth and business efficiency metrics to TLMI’s partner firm, Industry Insights. Greg Manns, Senior VP of INDUSTRY INSIGHTS INC , stated, “The 11 factors and metrics that determine the Singer Award winners are a very well-rounded representation of a company’s overall financial health. The winning firms are most effective at growing their business while maintaining strong expense management.”

Only four of those companies who participate in the Ratio Study, one in each category, are honored with the Singer Award each year. This year, the awards were presented to the following companies:

·??????Small Company: Ridgefield, New Jersey-based Trend Printing. The company’s first-time win in this category.

·??????Mid-Range Company: Fountain Valley, CA-based Coast Label Company , which won for the first time in this category, and for the seventh time overall.

·??????Medium Company: Lancaster, Ohio-based Blue Label Packaging Company . Second time winning in this category.

·??????Large Company: Brunswick, Ohio-based ID Images, LLC won for the first time in this category.

TLMI President Linnea Keen commented, “The TLMI Team would like to congratulate each of this year’s Eugene Singer award winners. The TLMI Management Ratio Study is the only industry initiative of its kind and remains one of the association’s greatest resources for our converter members.”

Craig Moreland of Coast Label Co., Mid-Range Company Category winner and seventh-time overall winner, noted, “Even when you don’t win a Singer Award, there is such a value in being able to learn how you compare to your peers. Win or not, we always learn from this annual ritual and for that I am grateful to TLMI, to Industry Insights, and especially to Gene Singer of Avery Label, who developed this study and brought it to TLMI 50 years ago.”

Andrew Boyd of Blue Label Packaging, Medium Company category winner, echoed the thoughts of many, “So much work went into getting our company back into good financial health after a post-pandemic ‘hangover’ that affected a lot of the craft beverage industry, our primary market. We overcame supply chain issues, rising interest costs, labor shortages, and so much more to put ourselves in a position to win this award. We couldn’t have done all of this without our outstanding team, our vendor partners, and, most importantly, our customers.”

A little background for those who are not familiar with the terminology. TLMI supports the label and package printing industry, and its members are printers/converters and their suppliers.

And what is Converting?

In its simplest form, in the label printing and converting industry, a converter prints and converts a pressure-sensitive film or paper substrate into something that identifies or promotes a product - a label, a tag, an envelope, enhanced packaging, even a three-dimensional shape, creativity knows no bounds.

Like most things, it’s not quite that simple. There are many components, processes and technologies involved. The supply chain is complex and a lot of science and technology contribute to the finished product that we see on a store shelf or on a box delivered to our door.

#TLMI?#CM23?#LabelLeaders?#TLMITogether?#Event?#Print?#Labels?#Packaging ?#Print?#Growth?#Membership