Flexibility the secret behind Whanganui printer H&A Print’s 100-year anniversary

Hinemoa Boyd and Eric Hallett from H&A Print which has had its 100th anniversary as a business on Monday, February 27. Photo / Bevan Conley

A willingness to stay flexible with the times is what the owners of Whanganui printers H&A Print credit to be behind the company’s success, with them celebrating 100 years in business.

Current co-owners of the business Hinemoa Boyd & Eric Hallett said they felt honoured to be a part of the company’s history.

“We’re only carrying the flag for [the previous owners],” Hallet said.

“From my side, it’s massive respect to the previous generations who have made it get this far.”

The company was founded in 1923 by William Hanton and Thomas Andersen as Hanton & Andersen Dispatch Printers.

William’s son Sid joined the company as a co-owner in 1929 and stayed in the role until 1978.

Norm Barlow joined Sid in 1949, before Ed Boyd and Kelvin Adam joined as owners in 1975, with John Shingleton coming alongside them in 1979.

Hinemoa would join Ed in 2005 and, finally, Hallett joined Hinemoa in 2022.

He was a second-generation printer himself, with his dad running a printing business in South Africa which he took over before moving to Whanganui in 2019 to join H&A as a press operator.

“I ran that exact machine in South Africa, I was looking to move the country so I basically stopped the business there and came across.”

He said the 100th anniversary demonstrated how much the local industry has changed over that time.

When H&A first started he said there were around 12 printing businesses in Whanganui, but many closed down as technology changed what needed to be printed over time.

“There’s a lot of things that were printed that don’t need to be printed any more and that’s important, there’s no point in printing something that people can’t utilise,” he said.

However, even with those changes in technology, he said more stuff was being printed than ever, but what had changed was how they printed and what.

“When you open up your fridge, every single product there has a label on it, so there’s more being printed nowadays than there ever has been, there’s more variety and that’s the difference,” he said.

With the variety of stuff needing printing today, H&A had to change with time and adopt technology into the industry.

He said they see print and online as two parts of production rather than direct rivals.

In particular, he said print-on-demand services had changed how they operated and made them become more flexible in their production.

“We’ve got smaller quantities now, but more targeted to your customer base as opposed to just one size fits all, I’m going to throw these and see who it sticks to,” he said.

Boyd said the adoption of technology was the reason the company was still here, with them focusing on improving sustainability 15 years ago.

She saw the business making it to 100 years as an achievement in itself.

To mark the occasion they hosted tours through their printing factory for customers last Thursday, with each of their machines running.

Boyd said they rolled out the red carpet and around 100 customers got a tour through the factory.

Hallett was surprised at how many people enjoyed seeing the old machines running.

“Some of them were interactive too so you could help yourself and ... try things out, do some scoring, some perforating, things like that,” Boyd said.

She thanked local businesses and the Whanganui community for staying loyal to them and getting them to this point.

“Even though there are franchises around you can go to, they come back to us and we really appreciate that,” she said.