Made in Jax: Nova Pressroom Products manufacturing chemicals in challenging times for print products

The Florida Times-Union
By Drew Dixon

Posted Dec 21, 2016 at 2:56 PM

The white concrete block 24,000-square-foot building that houses Nova Pressroom Products LLC operations on an obscure offshoot of Jacksonville’s McDuff Avenue is unassuming.

There’s only a small sign showing the company’s logo on the outside of the warehouse and production facility that manufactures cleaners, fountain solutions and coatings for about 200 global customers who produce print products.

But inside, there’s a complex system of chemical compounds used to make about 12 million pounds of product per year to go to customers.

“We make everything but ink,” said Ronald Rose, president of Nova Pressroom Products. “We blend chemicals to our formulas. What we have is technical expertise that relates to the chemistry and the equipment that it operates on.”

The company now has 22 employees, including four chemists, and generates about $10 million in annual revenue. Their clients include companies in Asia, South America, North America and a limited few in Europe. The Florida Times-Union newspaper is among the clientele.

Rose started the business in 2007, just as many print products were on the wane due to the digital age taking over and leading many to get their information from the internet as opposed to traditional print media.

But John Hart, vice president and chief financial officer of Nova Pressroom Products, said the company has made adjustments to the changing print marketplace and there are still avenues for hard-copy print revenue.

“Packaging, that’s important,” Hart said. “That’s growing. Print is being hurt among that which people read. But packaging is getting more and more sophisticated.”

Many companies are investing in multi-branding for their products, Rose said. There may be different brands or even label variations for the same product. One of the most important products Nova Pressroom generates is that glossy covering that provides the protective sheen over many labels.

Traditionally, those types of printing products have been used on glossy-coated magazines and catalogs and the company still provides the coatings for those products. But the packaging elements that are not only seen in stores but in delivery services and companies such as Amazon have provided a boost to the print industry.

“Every retail product has got iterations, flavors and sizes,” Rose said. “Just go buy a box of Raisin Bran [cereal]. You’ve got all these kinds of Raisin Bran that require all kinds of different packaging.”

While print products for packaging are buoying the print market, traditional forms of print media are not completely dead, despite claims to the contrary, Rose said.

It’s true that internet and mobile device purchasing has skyrocketed. But Rose said that in the past few years the traditional hard copy catalog has seen a rebound, which has increased demand for Nova Pressroom Products.

“Sure, people like to buy on the internet; but they don’t like to shop on the internet. They want something to look at. We’ve seen the catalog business coming back very strongly,” Rose said.

Beyond the actual chemicals protecting the print products themselves, the company also produces solvents that clean the ink and other material from rollers, printing presses and other machinery that produces the hard copy products.

Hart said people are still going to want to hold things and have that tactile experience no matter how pervasive the digital age. But he acknowledged that having anything to do with the print industry these days has inherent challenges.

“There’s a lot of consolidation going on within the industry. There’s consolidation of printers. There’s consolidation of suppliers. But that’s not unique to this industry,” he said.

Drew Dixon: (904) 254-8433.