Brands trust in their name

A persistent sales force and an emphasis on customer service have helped the company land lucrative national contracts.
By CYNTHIA VINARSKY
VINDICATOR BUSINESS WRITER
SALEM -- It's safe to say there's a little bit of Salem, Ohio, in every grocery store in America, and Salem Label Co. puts it there.
Located in Salem Industrial Park, the company produces colorful plastic labels to adorn some of the country's best-known food products.
The plant employs 95 full-time workers in round-the-clock shifts, churning out labels for Chock Full O' Nuts and Chase & amp; Sanborn coffees, Gerber baby food, Isomil baby formula, Spam and Coffee Mate, to name a few.
Sales last year topped $20 million, and sales manager Ronald C. Bailey said the company is planning an expansion that would double the size of its 22,000-square-foot production plant.
Recognition
Salem Label's customer service department gets much of the credit for its success, Bailey said, and he has proof. The Sara Lee Corp., a global food manufacturer based in Chicago which sells products in 180 nations, chose Salem Label this year for its first-ever Vendor of the Year Award for Customer Service.
Retail food giant Kroger Co. also singled the company out for a similar honor in 2001, and Killian's Pub Barrel awarded the company its Pyramid Award for vendor excellence in 1999.
"When someone calls with a problem, that customer service person had better be in a good mood," Bailey said.
"The customer doesn't care if you're having a bad day. When they have a problem, they want somebody who can help them solve it right away. Our customer service department is the lifeblood of this company."
Sales force
A persistent sales force helps too.
Bailey said it usually takes the company's sales representatives about two years to land a new contract, and he has some prospects he's been visiting or contacting by telephone monthly for four or five years.
It takes time to sell a manufacturer on the company's products, he explained, because the customer must invest as much as $1 million to have the presses and other machinery adapted for its label design.
"You can't get discouraged," the salesman said. "If you get discouraged, you might as well hang it up."
Quality work
Careful attention to quality and detail is another strength, one that helps the company maintain long-term contracts with food giants like Kroger and Sara Lee.
Surrounded by the steady whir of presses used to print the multicolored labels, Bailey pointed out the clear colors on a Similac formula label. "This company wants people to see their Teddy bear, so it has to be clear. The colors have to be perfect every time," he said. "It takes craftsmanship, especially on the older presses."
Salem Label has eight presses, each with eight- to 10-color capacity. Its newest press, purchased in 2001, cost more than $1.5 million.
The company uses environmentally friendly water-based inks, and its plastic material is 98 percent water and 2 percent ash, so it's recyclable.
Work shifts
Allan Bartnik, vice president of operations, said the company switched its employees from traditional, 40-hour work weeks to a three-day, 12-hour shift schedule in 1999. Employees like having four-day weekends, and the scheduling method works well for the company, he said.
Workers also work occasional Sundays, always scheduled several weeks in advance so they can make plans. He would not divulge how much the company pays its hourly employees.
Bartnik said most of Salem Label workers live in the Columbiana County area and they're usually trained on the job by working as a helper to a longtime employee. "We've been blessed with people who have a great attitude and a great work ethic," he said.
History
Salem Label was founded in 1862 by Alfred Wright, an English immigrant who introduced the United States to the idea of gummed labels. Used first on apothecary jars, the labels also were adapted for phonograph record labels, canning and mailing.
In 1950, Henry J. Anderson bought the company and started printing food labels, and in 1998 the family sold Salem Label to Seneca Enterprises Inc. in Franklin, Pa. Henry Anderson is now retired, and his son and former owner, Brooke Anderson II, continues with Salem as vice president of sales for the western U.S.
Bailey said Salem Label does about 98 percent of its business in plastic labels, using its trademark AeroWrap process. Plastic labels replace the older method of printing labels directly on the can.
Plastic labels aren't cheaper, he said, but they benefit the customer in other ways. Plastic labels can be produced in smaller minimum order sizes, they take much less space to store than labeled cans, and they generally produce brighter colors than painted-on labels, Bailey said.
The Iowa native said he travels about three days a week promoting Salem Labels, and he loves the work. His itinerary for the next three weeks includes three-day trips to South Carolina, Kansas City and Vermont.
"It's fine by me. I love to sell. Persistence is the biggest key," he said with a broad grin.
"What I love is that I can walk into a store anywhere in the country, from Chicago to Vermont to California, point to a product with our label on it and say: 'We made that.'"
vinarsky@vindy.com