From distributor to manufacturer: 50 years of Repacorp

When Rick Heinl became the sole owner of Repacorp in 1990, the company did not manufacture labels.

Instead, it was a firm representing printing companies as a distributor, hence the name ‘Repacorp’. Under Heinl’s leadership, the company changed direction and bought its first press just a few years later.

Repacorp has since grown. It now operates 45 flexo presses and 12 digital presses. It has expanded into RFID and flexible packaging and boasts one of the country’s most extensive stock label programs, with over 800 items in its catalog. Repacorp now has approximately 60m USD in annual sales and employs more than 200 people.

Today, Heinl estimates that about 30 percent of its business is blank labels, while printed labels, RFID and more, make up the remaining 70 percent. Repacorp sells through resellers, and its products are used in the manufacturing, medical, food and beverage, nutraceuticals and cannabis industries.

‘We’re getting into almost every industry,’ Heinl says.

Heinl is the CEO of Repacorp. His brother, Tony Heinl, joined the company as a salesman in 1988 and now serves as president. Rick Heinl’s three children, Rochelle Heinl Bednarczuk, Andy Heinl and Nick Heinl, work as vice presidents of MIS, digital and shrink sleeve labeling, respectively.

‘I always thought that if we could ever get this company to 25 million US dollars, we would have really accomplished something,’ Rick Heinl says. ‘When we hit 25 million USD, I couldn’t believe it, then 30, then 40, then 45, then 50, then 55, then 60. Who knows where it will go from here?’

History

Rick Heinl joined Repacorp as a salesman in 1978, four years after its founding. The initial owner, Jim Adams, had worked for Avery Dennison, which was shifting to focus on its automotive business at the time. As a result, Avery Dennison passed its other customers on to other companies, including Repacorp, which Adams founded in 1974 to handle this business from Avery Dennison.

Repacorp started as a reseller for converters. After becoming the sole owner, Rick Heinl transitioned the company from reselling into label manufacturing because he was frustrated with the service he got from the converters Repacorp represented. Some of these companies would deliver late or make other mistakes.

‘I finally said, “I can do this myself,”’ Rick Heinl adds.

In 1992, the company bought its first press, a Markem LP 8400, a 4-color thermal transfer press that used rotary dies and could also laminate.

From there, Rick Heinl continuously grew and reinvested in the company.

“Every time we turned around, there was something new. We’d go to the trade shows, and we’d say we got to get into that”

Rick Heinl started with a stock blank label program. Whenever his clients asked him for a new type of blank label, he added it to Repacorp’s stock label offerings. Advertising helped grow the stock label program as well. The program now includes thermal transfer labels, direct thermal labels, RFID labels, laser sheets, ‘Made in the USA’ labels and much more.

‘Every time I got an order for a thermal or thermal transfer label, I added it to my catalog,’ Rick Heinl recalls. ‘Now we have 4x1s. Now we have 4x2s. Now we have 4x3s, because people need it.’

He expanded into printed labels because that’s what customers wanted.

Giving clients what they want has been a key component of Repacorp’s business approach. This same mentality shaped the company’s process for adding new technology, which it did often.

‘Every time we turned around, there was something new,’ Heinl says. ‘We’d go to the trade shows and say we’ve got to get into that. We kept trying to create more product lines because we were selling through resellers and distributors, (to) give them more to sell, and we had to be more competitive.’

Change and reinvestment

Rick Heinl estimates that 50 percent of the company’s revenue comes from its flexo presses, 30 percent from digital technology, 10 percent from RFID, and everything else combined makes up about 10 percent.

Repacorp’s 57 flexo and digital presses include Mark Andy, Durst, Xeikon and Bobst machines. Its facilities house fan folders, turrets and trim-away systems.

Heinl says that, outside of Repacorp’s presses and finishing equipment, some of the company’s most crucial machinery is its platemaking machines, which it has at three facilities. If a plate breaks, Repacorp can make a new one in an hour rather than waiting several days for a new one.

The company’s newest machine is a 2.3m USD Bobst hybrid press. The press has seven colors for digital and five for flexo and has automatic die changers. It runs at 300 ft/min, is capable of 1,200 DPI and can print up to 20in wide.

New ventures

Repacorp got into RFID in 2005. The company had its own RFID press custom-built from a Comco press that could print six colors. It was a machine that no one else had. At the time, Walmart had started requiring RFID tags for its products but reversed this requirement in 2007, leading many converters to stop producing RFID labels. Repacorp continued with the technology, as its RFID press could also print regular labels, and the company was supplying the Department of Defense with RFID labels. Repacorp now has five RFID machines.

“We’re a privately held company still, so every dollar that we put into it, it’s not private equity money. It’s our money that we’re reinvesting back into the company and our employees and ourselves”

Repacorp began its shift into digital in 2007. EFI had recently acquired UV inkjet manufacturer Jetrion — its first venture into the labels market — and approached Repacorp with a partnership opportunity to test out its new digital label equipment. Jetrion also had a contact that could provide Repacorp with laser die-cutters, of which Repacorp was an early adopter.

Repacorp’s digital offerings have since grown. The company can now provide orders of at least 100 labels and can ship out anywhere from two days to two weeks, depending on the customer’s location and the press schedule.

‘The good thing about our equipment mix is that the digital allows us to grow our flexo,’ says Andy Heinl, vice president of digital printing. ‘As the product grows on the digital, eventually it moves into flexo equipment because flexo can run faster and wider.’

Digital also opened the company to other avenues, such as shrink sleeves and flexible packaging, the latter of which is the newest undertaking.

Getting into new ventures is no simple task, Andy Heinl notes. Doing so requires huge amounts of learning and time, as well as significant financial investment.

Flexible packaging, Repacorp’s newest business area, was particularly challenging to enter because of the new equipment needed. Repacorp has a 30-inch HP press for flexible packaging printing and other machinery for finishing, pouching and zippering. Acquiring its flexible packaging technology cost Repacorp more than 5M USD.

Buying new equipment has become more expensive over the years. Repacorp benefits from Rick Heinl’s long-term priority of reinvesting in the company.

‘We’re a privately held company still, so every dollar that we put into it, it’s not private equity money. It’s our money that we’re reinvesting back into the company, our employees and ourselves,’ Andy Heinl says.

Repacorp has also grown through acquisitions like OEI, Aladdin Label and T&T Graphics. These acquisitions have also added locations — in addition to its headquarters in Tipp City, Ohio, Repacorp has offices and facilities in Miamisburg, Ohio; Franklin, Wisconsin; and Phoenix, Arizona.

Whenever the company makes a new acquisition, the team considers what it will add — new equipment, location, customer base — and, of course, how much it will cost. Repacorp anticipates acquiring more and potentially adding another location farther south.

That constant reinvestment in the company, and the constant change to meet the demands of the day, is a principle that has guided Rick Heinl’s leadership. The company has invested between 3 and 5M USD annually for the past seven or eight years.

‘You have got to constantly look at what people need and what their packaging needs are and what their labeling needs are,’ Rick Heinl says. ‘If we would have stayed in blank labels, we’d have been out of business years ago.’

A family enterprise

Rick Heinl had quadruple bypass surgery last fall. He returned to the office on October 15, 2024, about six weeks after the surgery.

That same day was his 70th birthday, and his grandchildren came to his office to wish him a happy birthday.

Heinl says seeing his family when he comes to work is the main reason he hasn’t retired yet. However, after his bypass surgery, he thinks he’ll retire within the next two years.

Rick Heinl never intended for Repacorp to become a family business.

His brother, Tony Heinl, joined the business right after graduating from The Ohio State University, about a decade after he did.

Then, his daughter Rochelle Heinl joined. She had been working at a different company and didn’t like it, so she asked her father more than once for a job working for him. Andy Heinl came on board next, and finally, Nick Heinl.

‘If they weren’t involved in the company, I would have sold it by now,’ Rick Heinl says. ‘I keep coming to work because I get to work with my family. I get to share with them and learn what they’re doing.’