Hi. This is Frank Romano for WhatTheyThink.com. Innovation never stops. I love companies that come up with new ideas and new products. Here’s a case where Finch Paper with one of their partners, Converd (I think I pronounced that right, Converd) created a new material. It’s a board. It’s somewhat heavy. It’s environmentally correct. It’s recyclable. It’s moisture-resistant. It’s FSC-certified. But more importantly, it is designed to open up new markets. It allows you to handle signage, point of purchase displays, menu boards, aisle markers—by the way, they spelled aisle i-s-l-e, so I guess they’re selling them in Greece—end-caps, tabletops, danglers (I love that; what do you do—I print danglers), window signage, trade show displays, etc.
It’s very nice material. It feels nice. It reacts well to ink. It comes in large sizes. It can deal with most of the wide-format inkjet devices that are out there. It is sustainable, it is environmentally correct, and it is a new material that can open up new markets for printers that are into wide format.
Because as we know, those areas that I described with hanging signage and other things are growth areas because they don’t have an electronic competitor. Now you could make the case that someday there’ll be large-screen television sets, but I contend in most cases they’re going to stay on some kind of material. It has to be a relatively heavyweight material, something easy to use, and cut and die-cut. And this kind of material, which they call Enviroboard (I think I got that right, Enviroboard), I think is just the kind of thing, the kind of innovation that opens up new markets for printers. And I think you’ll be seeing many other paper companies coming up with unique substrates for new market segments. This will allow printers to get into new areas where there are new revenue sources. We’re not going to make money on the old stuff. We’re going to make our money on new stuff.
And that’s my opinion.
Discussion
By Matt Foster on Jun 20, 2012
Hello Frank, What terrific commentary on this product. Your points about innovation and the resulting profitability are spot on. Thank you. However...what you showed in the video is the "sell sheet" for the product - a summary of the FAB's and a stock list. Enviroboard, now called "Converdboard",is a bright white, double walled, rigid, miroflute corrugated board that is direct ink jet printable. I will be glad to get printed and unprinted samples to you.
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