November 14, 2007 -- The way to the Antilhas plant is a mix of glamour and nature. Engraved in a new and resplendent industrial zone named Tamboré on the outskirts of São Paulo, Brazil, the largest and one of the most dynamic cities in South America, it shows a set of exclusive condos, shopping malls, lavish private schools, modern industrial buildings, a lot of conserved green areas and a natural reserve. The facility itself is a state of the art printing plant with offset, flexography and automated finishing. Printing plant? I should have said a logistic company that produces cardboard packaging, store bags and paper packs with an ultimate SAP operational system and MIS.

Delivering to more than 12,000 stores all over Brazil, the 5th country in territorial size in the world, Antilhas (www.antilhas.com.br) dominates the packaging supply chain of the main franchise brands. With an innovative business model including store demanding forecasts, development, printing, stocking and delivering of all the packaging and related services for franchisers and industrial businesses it allows the company to consistently grow over 25% per year. Antilhas also exports to Latin American countries and is about to open a new plant in Mexico.

Not so far from Antilhas, is a transactional printer named Print Laser (www.printlaser.com.br) that has internally the only American Express printing site in the world. Growing double digits annually, Print Laser is now leading the consortium that will supply the so called hybrid mail for the government run postal agency in Brazil and has started three of the new six plants devoted to those applications. Despite all this, they are also on a fast track to implement the most advanced colored transpromo site in Latin America. Print Laser has doubled in size this year.