Turnover boost for Belgaum’s Yarbal and awards to top it

The company has also added a refurbished four-colour Komori press, five die-cutting machines, and two pasting and few other finishing equipment.

 

Early this year, the company was the recipient of the best and finest quality printing on duplex carton award, and second spot for its poster and greeting card, awarded by Maharashtra Mudran Parishad. Besides, the company has also won National Awards for Excellence in Print (NAEP) for ice-cream carton and in the general category for annual report on three occasions.

 

“We had envisioned a growth of 40% year-on-year and we met our expectations very easily,” said Ashok Yagattimath, joint managing director at Yarbal.

 

Yagattimath attributes the success of Yarbal’s business to the substantial market share it has captured in the Indian ice-cream packaging segment. “We supply cartons and cup lids to ice-cream companies like Joy and Creambell,” said Yagattimath. “We have been able to provide improved print quality and more particularly, cost-effective paper-based containers, meeting the demands of our customers.”

 

Yarbal claims to have developed the technology in-house after doing a number of trials. “The challenge was to create an alternative to plastic. It had to be affordable,” said Yagattimath. He added, “Once you pour the ice-cream mix into the carton, and keep in the refrigeration at below 18 degree Celsius, the carton should not smudge. Our cartons do not.”

 

“The materials we use are FDI approved, including the board. The board pre-processed and is procured from Mumbai and Uttaranchal. We print and laminate it.”

 

Established in 1986 as Yarbal Offset Printers, doing commercial printing jobs, Yarbal diversified into packaging in 2002, renamed itself Yarbal Print-Pack. It stopped doing commercial printing job. Yagattimath said, “Packaging is our core business, but sometimes we do work for some key customers. However, that is a very small part of our business; maybe 1% or less.”

 

Besides Yagarttimath, Yarbal is managed by Ajit Patil, joint managing director, and Patil’s wife Sumangala, design director and son Amey, executive director.

 

Yagattimath said, digital and metpet are the trends that he is seeing in the print place. “Metpet is the area in which we are experimenting, and once we are ready, we will think of investing in an intradeck kit.”

 

At present the trial is being carried on using its offline UV machines. “There’s Drupa scheduled for next year, and we are eagerly waiting to see if there’s something at the show for us,” signed off Yagattimath.