Sustainability has always been a priority for family-owned Vollherbst. How to combine innovation, sustainability, and excellence in the global premium label sector? Matthias Vollherbst, fourth-generation owner and CEO, shares his vision.
Where does your sustainability leadership come from?
My great-grandfather founded the company in 1921 in Endingen at the picturesque Kaiserstuhl, a wine region a few kilometers from Alsace. He acquired his first printing press to combine his two passions – viticulture and bookbinding! This was the starting point for Vollherbst, which has more than a century of expertise in labels and has focused on nature and people from the outset. The desire to enjoy the finest things in life – wine, champagne, spirits, cigars – and combine them with precision craftmanship, remains central to the company. We manufacturer what we call #wowlabels, but we are also innovators and strategic partners. Beyond a vast technical offer, along with our global network of designers and suppliers, our team supports brands to develop their ideas and make them happen!
How is your innovation strategy shaping up?
Our most recent development, sustainLABEL, takes a 360° approach to sustainability to assess and improve each label with eco-friendly, cost-effective alternatives. The essential idea of sustainLABEL is to create a label so that the brand story, design, label size, materials and printing techniques are harmonized to maximize resource conservation without losing their aesthetic appeal. We draw on an extensive range of printing and finishing techniques. We are the first wine and spirits label printer to test the new EcoLeaf technology, which uses only as much metallization as is required to transfer the metallic pigments onto labels. craftLABEL is a Vollherbst innovation that adds soil from a vineyard or grass from a championship football pitch to a label to deliver a more authentic consumer experience. Our augmented reality app LABELinmotion brings the label to life in a new, digital dimension.
What will be your focus in the next decade?
A key constant for Vollherbst in the coming years will be change. Despite all the new technologies, it’s crucial for us to always remember our roots and to put people at the center of our work: the consumer, our partners – clients and suppliers – our employees and, finally, our children - for whom we must create a future worth living.
