Roy Mahabier recently retired after 53 years in the packaging industry. His most recent role was Factory Manager at Nurscon. Mahabier, who is now 71 years old, shares his career highlights, advice and more.

Mahabier was born and raised in Pietermaritzburg and completed his matric certificate at Woodlands Indian High School in 1972.

How did you get into the packaging industry?

I was forced to urgently find employment when my father had fallen ill and I was faced with the challenges of providing for my family, and getting my younger siblings through their schooling careers.

I replied to an advertisement that appeared in the Natal Witness; a company called Multitape was looking for young matriculants to work as printers’ attendants. My interview was successful, and I was employed on 23 January 1973. My duties were housekeeping, such as cleaning printing equipment, the press and the floors.

I registered with the South African Typographical Union in that same year. I was very curious and tried to absorb all functions of the printing equipment, taking notes on a small scrap book that I carried. I was noticed by the print manager, the late Derrick Bell, and factory manager Don Bacon.

I was given an opportunity to work on a Heidelberg printing machine, and that is how I managed to dedicate almost 53 years to the packaging industry.

What are some of your career highlights?

Working on great printing equipment, which started with the Kopack rotary letterpress machine, as well as other brands such as Uteco, Fisher & Krecke, Windmöller & Hölscher (W&H), BOBST, Comexi, SP Ultraflex and Windsor.

I was involved in the early launch of Tropika juice, as well as Rama margarine tubs, Clover Dairies 5lt and 2lt tubs, Unilever, Tiger Brands, and Premier Milling.

I had the opportunity to work for cooperate companies Astra Pak and Nampak in senior leadership roles as project manager, technical manager, COO and head of machine procurement and training.

What are the key printing technology developments over your career?

Printing has evolved immensely from the days I started. Machines have been introduced by various Indian, German, Italian and other Asian technocrats with amazing and profound cutting-edge technology. Back in the day, a 6 colour job with semi automatic settings would take approximately 2-3 hours in setting up colour, registration and overall quality, generating approximately 20-50kg of setup scrap.

Today, setups are fully automatic from registration to quality management and viscosity control. A prime example, which has been the highlight of my career, is the BOBST Vision CI with graphics positioning system (GPS). This machine is amazingly accurate in overall sharp and defined quality.

What makes it exciting is the GPS mounting. Jobs are mounted using the GPS mounting machine, which transfers the registration and print pressures on all 8 colours accurately within 10 minutes and 10 metric tons of scrap.

In my entire career I have not seen nor worked on a machine as amazing as the BOBST Vision CI. I started up a complete flexo division at Richflex using the BOBST Vision CI with staff that have never been in flexographic printing before. I trained the entire team within six months from installation and won three awards (silver, bronze and iron) at the GAPP Awards ceremony in 2024. This was never done before in South African packaging history.

I also worked with Hauke Liefferink, MD at Acme Graphics, in successfully introducing ECG (Extended Colour Gamut) on wide web printing, thereby reducing setup scrap and solvent waste on wash up, because we only used CMYKOVG (Cyan, magenta, yellow and black + white and Orange, Violet and Green), reducing press returns. This was indeed my highest achievement in the packaging industry.

What is your advice on running a successful packaging business?

Keep people motivated, and be transparent. Training and upskilling is also important. Always appreciate your staff, and respect and support their decisions. No matter how good the technology is, without the proper manpower, technology has no effect in business. ‘Man-Machine-Method’.

Who has been your greatest inspiration?

There have been many during my five decade career. Firstly, my late father who motivated me during my early days. The late Derrick Bell, my wife who is my pillar of strength, supporting me during my early days, and last but not the least Dhiren Patel, my MD at Nurscon.

What makes the South African packaging industry so unique and exciting compared to other parts of the world? What challenges do we face?

We have exposure to almost every recent model of modern cutting-edge equipment, whereby OEMs have supported the packaging industry with guidance in selecting proper equipment, installation and training.

Our challenges are skilled people leaving South Africa, and lack of proper training and motivation.

Do you have any hobbies?

My greatest hobby is reading about and following packaging industry trends worldwide. Being 71, one needs to keep abreast of the latest technology. My other hobbies are cricket and soccer.