Digital Printers to Merge After Decades-Long Competition

Two packaging printers in New York will become one after decades of competing against each other.

Syracuse Label & Surround Printing (North Syracuse, NY) and Macaran Printed Products (Cohoes, NY) have agreed to a merger. The agreement includes Macaran’s sister company, W.N. Van Alstine & Sons.

In a release, the companies said the merger was “driven by industry consolidation,” with both firms having found themselves “in similar circumstances as the competitive landscape has shifted around them.”

The merger will result in a packaging and label printer with 175 full-time employee owners, $65 million in sales, three facilities, and 165,000 square feet of manufacturing space.

Macaran CEO Nick Van Alstine said the combined company “will be better positioned to compete through intellectual property, innovation, press technology, operational efficiency, and overall scale.”

The organization will be led by Van Alstine and Kathy Alaimo, CEO of Syracuse Label, who will serve as co-CEOs until their retirements on Dec. 31, 2022.

Upon their retirement, Van Alstine and Macaran will assume roles as co-chairs of the company’s board of directors. President Tom Sargent will assume the CEO position effective Jan. 1, 2023.

The release says customers will not see any changes to the day-to-day operations of Syracuse, Macaran, or Van Alstine. All sales, service, accounting procedures, and contacts will remain intact, and all divisions will continue to use their branded visual identities and logos.

Syracuse Label, founded in 1967, offers a variety of digital and flexographic printing solutions. Macaran, a third-generation company, is a supplier of label and packaging solutions for various markets, as well as a 3M distributor partner. Both companies are 100% employee-owned and will remain so following the merger’s completion.