Technology changes. For Frederik Voet, some of the most important things in business shouldn’t.
His grandfather founded Etivoet as a local printing company, his father strengthened the business and moved it fully into labels, and Frederik and his brother purchased the company about a decade ago. Across those generations, Frederik says the values have remained remarkably consistent: care for customers, care for employees, quality, and above all, trust.
That foundation hasn’t made Etivoet cautious about change. Quite the opposite. The company embraces the idea that it should create trends rather than simply follow them, but Frederik’s definition of innovation is refreshingly practical. “For me, it all starts with a customer having a problem,” he says. Instead of worrying too much about what competitors are doing, his team asks how it can solve that problem — then thinks, tests, fails, learns, and keeps going until it finds an answer.
Etivoet’s multilayer labels are one example. A large petrochemical company approached the team in 2016 because it needed significantly more room for information on its labels. Etivoet developed a multilayer solution and won a FINAT Award for it the following year. The company believed so strongly in the approach that it abandoned its booklet-label capability and committed itself to multilayer technology. The lesson for other print businesses is compelling: Sometimes innovation requires more than adding another capability. It requires deciding where you believe the market is going and committing to it.
The same problem-solving mindset is driving Etivoet’s patented wash-off label, designed to help customers reuse bottles and other packaging. Making a label stick reliably and then wash away cleanly after aging is far more complicated than it sounds. Etivoet built an in-house laboratory with aging ovens and washing equipment, and the technology is already around its fifth iteration. In one customer test, labeled bottles sat outside for an entire year through sun, rain, and frost before being washed.
Frederik believes staying ahead requires knowing what technology can do before the need for it becomes urgent. Etivoet operates HP Indigo technology and other presses, and compares choosing capabilities to knowing when you need a microscope and when you need a telescope. Printers should keep their eyes and ears open, understand what is happening beyond their own walls, and maintain strong relationships with suppliers, employees, and customers, he says. “If you have to jump in demand, probably you’re too late."
