Ink in his veins

Author: Michele Lawson

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Michele Lawson

Perched on the catwalk providing access to the top tiers of one the company’s two extensive web printing presses, Central Ontario Web’s new operations manager John van Huizen is an industry veteran newly arrived in Barrie from Edmonton.

“Stop the presses!” The order has been used in movies for dramatic effect when a late-breaking story demands attention, but the reality is rarely so dire. It’s more likely the button is pushed by pre-arrangement to change a printing plate to localize a national advertising flyer, says John van Huizen, the new operations manager at Central Ontario Web (COW). Or perhaps it’s a simple adjustment that needs to be made somewhere down the line. “It happens all the time,” he explains. “There are all kinds of reasons.” Having arrived in Barrie from Edmonton only weeks ago, van Huizen has taken the reins of the 19-year-old printing company from his retired predecessor. “I’m so new, I don’t even have my Ontario licence yet,” he smiles, excusing himself for a moment while he takes a call from his wife – who’s received an offer on the western house she stayed behind to sell. Although a fresh face in the area and company, van Huizen is nevertheless a veteran in his industry, having spent his 35-year career working up the ladder in web-printing companies across the prairies. At the core of each plant is the huge series of presses and folders set up to accommodate enormous spools (or webs) of paper that unwind up the printing units and across and down through the folder, which also trims as necessary. “We have one press line with 28 units and one press line with 18 units,” he says of the massive configurations that allow vast flexibility in capabilities of size, color and paper quality. The scope of the products COW produces is well represented in mailboxes each week. “When you go home on a Friday night, everything that falls out of your newspaper (including the newspaper itself), we print,” he explains. It’s all about newsprint. The phone books, flyer inserts, real estate or auto magazines, and newspapers that fly off the presses at COW by the tens of thousands are printed in a variety of colours and on the many different grades of newsprint. Full-sheet newspapers, commonly known as broadsheet or metro-size papers are the largest format to come off the presses at a maximum size of 22.75 inches by 17.5-inches wide. From there, the pages can be folded and trimmed to produce tabloid-sized products and digest magazines. Two million flyers can be printed in 40 hours. When necessary, the presses can go 24 hours a day, and van Huizen is committed to filling the entire rotation on a regular basis. Currently, the conventional daytime working week is typically quiet at COW while the crews focus on afternoons and night shifts. “We’re primarily in the newspaper business,” he explains. “And publishers need them printed at night.” Printing newsprint on a cold-set web press is the most economical form of printing, says van Huizen. Heated processes, on the other hand, require more energy to run the dryer, offset more air-bourne chemicals and necessitate more expensive inks. The cost savings is complemented by the savings to the environment, which works well with COWs Green initiatives. Not only are all leftover papers, cardboard and inks recycled, COW is now a Forest Stewardship Council (FSC)-certified company. This international brand guarantees the forest products purchased comes from responsibly managed forest and verified recycled sources. “If you as an advertiser want to put out an environmentally friendly product, we can certify that product,” van Huizen says. “It’s a cradle to grave thing – trees are tracked from forest to end use.” Canada is the world leader in FSC certification, he adds. “Most of the newsprint we use typically has a percentage of post-consumer waste,” continues van Huizen, who says the amount varies by project. “Cities like Toronto set a fairly high percentage of post-consumer waste to be able to distribute in the city.” For more information about all the options at COW, email van Huizen at jvanhuizen@metroland.com.