ANNIVERSARIES
Current Kurz chairman and CEO Walter Kurz, his brother and Kurz director Peter Kurz, and their father Dr. Herbert Kurz
Kurz Australia celebrates its 50-year milestone Having been in operation for 50 years this year, Kurz Australia has been a leader in delivering embellishment solutions and expertise
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urz Australia marks 50 years of operations, having grown from a rather unusual start. For Kurz Australia managing director Stephen Pratt, who has been with the business since 2014, celebrating 50 years in existence means driving innovation and delivering on quality for its Australian customers. The idea of Kurz Australia developed when Geoff Johnstone, who was working for a shoe manufacturing business, Blandford, back in the day, was using Kurz foils for decorating leather products that the business was manufacturing. Johnstone saw a wider opportunity for the usage of Kurz foils in Australia and wrote up a business plan, which he sent across to Germany to the Kurz family – to Dr. Herbert Kurz, who was then the CEO. Kurz was so impressed with the plan that he travelled to Australia with his son, Walter, to meet Johnstone. About 12 months later, in 1970, they opened up Kurz Australia with Johnstone as its initial managing director. Kurz Australia was the first English speaking subsidiary as at the time of Kurz Australia’s set up, the other subsidiaries were based in Europe. “The business model used in Australia, of bringing in a local managing director
and setting up direct operations and direct sales distribution, became the business model for the 23 subsidiaries that Kurz now has,” Pratt mentioned. Ideas and innovation were also being contributed by the Australian subsidiary. “One of those innovative, big ideas that came out of Australia was the use of decorative foils onto wine labels. This wasn’t being done anywhere else in the world at that time,” Pratt said. The Kurz family was made known of the idea when Dr. Kurz, Walter Kurz and Geoff Johnstone visited a Kurz Australia customer, the Ever-Redi Press Label business in Griffith, that showed them some applications done with Kurz foils. “The Ever-Redi Press Label business was hot stamping gold and silver foil onto wine labels and this intrigued Dr. Kurz and Walter Kurz,” Pratt said. “They took that idea overseas and promoted it to other wine districts in Europe. Today, almost all wine labels have foil on them. The idea was so unique that Count Cinzano, who was the head of the Cinzano wine and spirits company, visited Ever-Redi Press and saw what was being done and took the idea back to his company. All Cinzano products had foil on them moving forward.”
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In the early days of Kurz, Johnstone also pioneered the use of woodgrain foils to decorate furniture. “Kurz was a supplier of an imitation wood grain product, Touch Wood, that was used for decoration in the caravan industry in Australia through the ‘70s and ‘80s. The application was duplicated in other key markets overseas, creating a huge business for Kurz,” Pratt said. Since then, Kurz Australia has become the major player for embellishment in the labels and packaging space. “Decorative metalised foil has become such an integral part of labels and packaging. It’s not only being used on labels for wine bottles but also perfume bottles, pharmaceuticals, make-up and personal care products, as well as food and other FMCG goods,” Pratt said. “Kurz Australia was and still is driven by the market. The market asked for foils to go on to labels and in those days, it was wet gum labels that needed to be hot foil stamped onto the product before the label was applied to it. But, in the packaging industry, they needed transfer products that could go on to cardboard, cartons and coated products and as packaging technologies progressed, then onto various plastic substrates like polypropylene,
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