Advertek commemorates 25th anniversary, move to expanded facility
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Advertek Inc. recently commemorated its 25th anniversary and its move to its single 77,000-square-foot facility with an open house celebration attended by business leaders, vendor partners, and customers.
In June, Advertek announced the acquisition of Custom Colour Imaging (CCI), a Toronto-based photo lab and print-on-demand company. As part of the acquisition, Advertek’s corporate offices, Print on Demand, Small and Large Format Printing, and Mailing divisions now operate out of the existing CCI facilities in North York, ONT. Advertek added an additional 14,000 square feet of total warehouse space to CCI’s existing 63,000 square feet, bringing the total facility size to 77,000 square feet.
“The merger of Advertek’s innovative technologies with CCI’s robust assets has notably enhanced our production capabilities,” says Joe Montalbano, Co-CEO of Advertek. “This move will centralize operations and support a more cohesive team environment.”
Montalbano adds the combination of the two companies adds complementary services to the united company: “CCI had some things that we don’t do, and we had things that CCLI didn’t do, but we now both have a lot to offer. We were doing lithography and longer runs, where CCI had gallery-wrapped canvas, a robust layflat album department, a silver-halide lab, and a woodworking shop, where they build their own stretcher bars and frames.”
Montalbano is particularly excited about the high-end book capabilities offered by the combined company, with Smyth-sewn binding options and the ability to make books up to 20-by-29 inches in size. In addition, the capacity for dye-sublimation printing has been doubled.
Simon Spina, the C0-CEO of Advertek, also sees a great opportunity. While Advertek’s roots are in traditional printing, the move into photo printing and personalized products recently brought in new growth opportunities. “What was exciting about that is the online on-demand business for us has been growing exponentially,” he said. “It is now more than 50% of our overall business with the acquisition. It was natural for us to look at that.” He noted, that with the addition of CCI’s capabilities, the company has an opportunity to expand business with existing customers, as well as with new ones.
The combined operations now boast advanced equipment such as HP Indigo printing presses, a Heidelberg 6-colour 40-inch press, MGI 3D JET foil/varnish, Agfa Jeti Tauro UV printers, Kongsberg cutters, Xerox I-Gen and Iridesse presses, and silver-halide printing equipment, laying the foundation for expansion in photo books, lay-flat books, premium wood canvases, and dye sublimation sectors. Moreover, the company’s woodworking shop has been upgraded to craft a diverse range of frames and stretcher bars.
At the celebration, the Advertek management acknowledged the long-time contributions of its staff members, especially CCI founder Leo Sciarrino, as well as acknowledging the passing of the torch in a management transition to Andy Montalbano and Adam Gallo.
