How Versatile Packagers Stays Versatile
Co-Packer celebrates 25 year partnership with Signature Brands – Versatile Packagers shares the keys to building long-lasting co-packing partnerships.
Versatile Packagers, headquartered in Tampa, is part of the Wheelhouse family, with locations in North Carolina, Indiana, Pennsylvania, and Texas. Priding itself on building lasting co-packing partnerships, Versatile celebrates 25 years with Signature Brands, the dessert decoration and holiday goods company, this year.
Contract Manufacturing and Packaging (CMP) caught up with Executive Director Bob Vande Weghe, who explained how Versatile builds those partnerships and why tactics like taking an end-to-end cost mindset, staying agile amidst fluctuating demand, and fostering innovation are critical.
CM+P: Versatile Packagers went from a 15,000-square-meter facility to one ten times that size today. How?
Bob Vande Weghe: Versatile Packagers started in 1992 with Tropicana. We were co-packing for them, handling multi-packs of products on both the refrigerated and ambient sides. This launched our company. From there, we diversified and grew by adding more services and equipment to handle different types of packaging. Since Florida isn’t a huge manufacturing state, we have to stay agile to manage a lot of different types of jobs. Most of our jobs aren’t large, so agility in our location is essential as we’re constantly handling a bit of everything for everyone.
What kinds of jobs do you take on nowadays?
We’ve expanded into various types of packaging, including blister packaging, cartoning, and beverage containers. In 2019, we were purchased by South Atlantic Packaging and Wheelhouse Corporation, which opened new opportunities to serve our customer base across multiple locations, reducing freight costs for those with out-of-state locations. We now have five locations across the U.S. Now, we’re involved in the automotive, medical, nutraceutical, skincare, and haircare industries. I think the only area we don’t cover is pharmaceuticals.
How does Versatile Packagers stand apart from the competition?
Our focus is on developing long-term customer relationships. I often talk about “yes sir/yes ma’am” accounts—customers that simply want us to execute without collaboration. While those are fine, we prefer partnerships where we can collaborate and look for improvements in design, labor, equipment, and people. Those are the four areas we focused on over the years.
Once a customer is onboard, we aim to sit down with them and suggest ways to reduce costs and improve processes. We prefer to be involved early in a project rather than after everything is finalized. By then, it can be too late to make improvements or reduce costs, and it becomes a “yes sir/yes ma’am” scenario.
Tell us how the partnership with Signature Brands grew over the years.
Initially, Signature Brands brought us a “yes sir/yes ma’am” project to assemble components, which was easy to execute. As we built trust, they asked us to handle more complex tasks. We like to ask questions like: “What can we do better with those projects? How can we reduce those costs?” We don’t just work with the customer, but we also work with the manufacturers that may be making the materials themselves and ask questions like: “Can we go from a .25-point board down to a .24-point board and still accomplish the same goal?”
We also tend to think end-to-end about costs. With Signature’s cupcake paper liner business, they asked if we could match the price of another co-packer. I told them that we have a piece of equipment here that can do it twice as fast, but that it would be a different concept, a different look and feel. We helped them reduce the package by about half and reduce their cost by about two-thirds.
In that example, what was your concept?
Originally, the cupcake liner package was a header card stapled to a poly bag. We changed it to a flow-wrap bag with a header card and then moved to a fully printed flow-wrap with a hang hole. Afterward, we began manufacturing the liners ourselves, forming and packaging them, which allowed us to increase production and cut costs dramatically.
Over the years, our collaboration has led to more cost reductions, increased production speed, and process improvements.
What does a good co-packing partnership look like to you?
It is about constant communication and transparency. All our systems allow customers to see real-time data, so our customers trust what we’re doing. When they have that trust factor of knowing what we’re doing and seeing what we’re doing, they know we’re producing a good product for them. And year after year of working closely together like that produces great results. Then they are going to give you more and more responsibilities.
It’s also about continuous improvement. We don’t rest on past successes. We’re always looking for ways to reduce costs and increase sustainability. The world changes constantly, and we have to adapt with it. We’ve worked closely with Signature Brands to develop new packaging, like a nesting cup design that increased efficiency and reduced costs. Our relationship with Signature Brands has been successful because of collaboration and listening on both sides. That’s the key for any contract packager: listening and acting on what’s discussed.
Can you go the extra mile for one customer without neglecting the others?
It all starts with not getting overloaded by any one customer. You can’t be everything to everybody. We assign key roles for each account. Personally, I manage five to seven accounts, which allows me to spend quality time with them and focus on developing their products. We meet with one customer regularly to discuss projects and test materials to find ways to reduce costs. It’s about collaboration, and customers also need to be open to spending time finding improvements.
What do you do in challenging times when there are fluctuations in consumer demand?
Our versatility lies in two strengths. First is our ability to manage labor really well. Second is having multifunctional equipment that can handle various jobs. We try to work with the equipment we already have so that we’re not increasing costs by adding more and more equipment. For example, we have equipment that can run 10 pieces a minute, but we also have equipment that can run 150 pieces a minute. When you can move from job to job quickly, it allows you to be that agile type of vendor that you need to be. I think this flexibility helps us remain competitive to handle fluctuations in demand that our customers experience daily from retailers.
As a contract packager, we see a lot of volatility with supply chains and uncertainty with new product launches. But I think that’s part of our business. When you have a good relationship with your customer, you’re able to work through the challenges associated with change and unpredictability.
What would you say is your approach to innovation?
The Wheelhouse management team meets weekly across all our locations to discuss projects. It’s great to have team members with different expertise to bounce ideas off each other. My business partner in Tampa and I constantly talk about ways to reduce costs and improve processes. Innovation and sustainability are key topics every week. One of the benefits of having five locations is that if one facility doesn’t need a piece of equipment, another might. We can pack it up and move it where it’s needed, allowing us to maximize the use of our assets.
What’s next for Versatile Packagers?
Sustainability is our biggest focus right now. Paper blisters and paper packaging in general for non-food packaging, as well as trying to control rising costs, are some of the upcoming processes we’re developing in-house with some help from our vendors. This type of paper packaging is already happening in the industry, and we have been doing this for years, but we plan to expand further and try to find ways to bring costs down and help create a greener environment.
This Article was featured in the November/December issue of Contract Manufacturing + Packaging Magazine. View the issue HERE.
