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Ardagh Invests in Digital Can Printing

Commercially viable since 2019 and operating more or less under the radar at first, Canada’s Hart Print is now ready for what Co-CEO and Co-Founder JP Paradis calls “our coming out party.”

Pat Reynolds 2016 Official

With two Hinterkopf direct-to-shape digital can printing systems humming in the Montreal plant where it all began, the firm is opening a 45,000 sq ft facility in Chicago’s western suburbs that will have three printers running by the end of this year. Two more sites are now being planned, which means that by the end of 2023, Hart will have four sites and nine Hinterkopf direct-to-shape digital can printers.

In some ways it all started with Stephanie Hart, whose name the company bears. She wore a number of hats in the lead up to the launch of Hart Print. From 2004 until 2020 she was at ALDO Group, a Montreal-based firm specializing in the design and production of quality, stylish, and accessible footwear and accessories. Her last position there was VP of Real Estate and Brand Environments. In 2016 she enrolled in the John Molson Executive MBA program at Concordia University in Montreal. And somewhere along the way she became an investor and partner in Brasserie Harricana, a new microbrewery also in Montreal.

Like many microbreweries, small batches and artisanal offerings were central to the Harricana business. “But as we looked at ways of decorating cans in small batches, “ says Hart, Co-Chief Executive Officer and Co-Founder, “we realized that the only real options were stickers, which are not very attractive, or shrink sleeve labels, which are not good environmentally. At about the same time I met three fellow students in the MBA program, and before you knew it we were looking for a way to digitally print cans in small batches. Initially it was an academic assignment that was part of our course work. But when we graduated, we decided to make it happen.”

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