A Visit to the Copag Playing Cards Factory

Posted by Administrator on 11/15/2008 to Articles

I recently traveled to Manaus, Brazil, to attend Copag’s 100th anniversary party and visit its playing cards factory. Manaus is located in the northwestern part of the country - deep in the Amazon jungle. In the late 19th Century the city became an inland capital of commerce, fueled by booming exports of rubber tapped from the forest. After the rubber boom went bust, the river port languished until a free trade zone attracted factories seeking shelter from high Brazilian taxes. And so in 1986 the Copag factory was moved, machine by machine, from its old building in São Paulo to a low, modern facility thousands of miles away.

Copag Company Car

Along with my elegant invitation to Copag’s party came a coffee table book chock full of images and anecdotes marking the company’s long history. And the Gonçalves family, who founded the company 1908, still owns 50% of it and actively manages it with loving care. The other owner of the company is Carta Mundi of Belgium, Europe’s largest manufacturer of playing cards. Carta Mundi owns other playing card companies in various countries, and the 200 guests flown into Manaus comprised an eclectic mix of Belgians, Mexicans, Americans, Germans and, of course, Brazilians from Copag’s headquarters in São Paulo.

As we approached the Manaus airport, we could see a miles-wide column of rain pouring under thick grey clouds. The massive downpour closed the airport and as we circled for an hour I tried to follow the many rivers that cut into the matted green and gray mass of the Amazon. Manaus actually is an island surrounded by two broad rivers that merge a few miles downstream from the city to form the Amazon river. About a dozen Canadians on the plane, heading for a week long fishing expedition to land rainbow bass, suddenly became animated when they saw the low water beaches of the Rio Negro.

Our dealings with Copag in the U.S. have always been efficient and pleasant. And so I was not surprised when I was greeted at the Manaus airport by polite Copag employees, who quickly shuttled me and several other visitors on the flight from Miami to our hotel. The massive Hotel Tropical is located a few miles north of the city, on the famous Ponta Negra beach. Outside of its long dim corridors trimmed with colonial influences are park-like grounds and pools ringing with party music. And this is where Copag’s centennial celebration would reach its grand finale the next day.

The next morning Copag organized a tour of the factory for its customers. I had visited two European playing card factories earlier this year, so for me this probably was the highlight of the trip. Although we never really experience any issues with Copag cards, the quality of the products is extremely important to us because we own the inventory that we sell. And the factory did not disappoint. The tour began in a small storage area for raw materials, which are imported from the top manufacturers in Europe. One interesting anecdote is that the factory is air conditioned to simulate the European climates where the cardstock is produced, as otherwise the 90% humidity and heat of the Amazon would seriously affect the printing process. We stepped over to the printing department, where we gawked at the factory’s crown jewel, a multimillion dollar, seven color press with a ne w UV dryer that substantially improves quality and speed.

The factory was making playing cards full tilt on all shifts, and the roar of all the presses sucking in giant sheets of paper and plastic was quite impressive. In the pre-press department our small group stood around more multimillion dollar equipment, the latest "computer to plate" machines. Copag’s formula for success was already clear: the latest technology and the best raw materials. We moved on to different stations in the busy but pleasantly cool factory, watching everything from the application of a linen finish to paper playing cards with giant silver rollers to the click-clack motions of machines cutting, sorting and packing decks of cards. What sticks in my mind is the human touch: a small statue of St. Christopher in a niche above the maintenance department’s area.

Overall impressions? From the moment you drive into the factory parking lot, you notice that the place is spotless. The dust of neighboring factories, the heat and humidity of the tropics, the gentle chaos of the city stay outside the gates. There are no highways to Manaus. Everything must be flown or shipped into the city, a port that in a way is landlocked inside the horizon-filling jungle. The logistics of running this factory are tough. The raw materials arrive in special air conditioned containers and many products leave the same way, but you don’t get the impression that the challenge is overwhelming. In fact, there is a steady, easy rhythm to the place.

After lunch in the employee cafeteria, we head back to the Hotel Tropical. The half-hour trip unwinds outside the bus window through different views of Manaus. The factories in the free trade zone give way to busy streets fronted with locksmiths, mattress shops, and convenience stores. Thin young men gather in corners wearing the unofficial uniform of the tropics: ragged shorts and thin flip-flops. (I realize then that a job at Copag probably is a coveted one; there probably are few air-conditioned factories in Manaus and perhaps fewer that serve such a good lunch.) And soon we are closing in on the hotel, the river shimmering like a polished silver platter, now miles upstream from the din of Manaus.

I had a conference call with New York in the afternoon and then a barrage of questions from our own busy warehouse, so I missed a tour of the Amazon river by boat. But I did not miss the extravagant party in the evening. Copag and Carta Mundi management already had been in Manaus for a few days, working through a heavy schedule of management meetings and presentations. So before the party I enjoyed an opportunity to talk to several Copag employees over beers in the hotel lobby. And then it was time to head to the pool.

Copag Centennial

Round tables with white linens surrounded one of the big, round pools of the Hotel Tropical. Everything was beautifully lit as we listened to a welcome speech by Ricardo Gonçalves, simultaneously translated for us through headphones. He gave a medal to his mother and emphasized his company’s responsibility to the environment. More speeches followed and then the party began, lit off by a raucous Amazon band, the winner of a famous local music festival, complete with dancing vixens with feather costumes and a bouncing papier-mâché Brahma bull. The music was loud, brave but the words spoke about sensitivity towards nature and overall it produced a powerful effect. Then came a booming disco group, which sent the Europeans swinging around the dance floor in what most Americans, and perhaps some of Brazilians, would call "freaky" moves. Although it was a great party, I was a little tired by 2:00 a.m., so I missed the partygoers jumping into the pool at the end of the night.

The next morning I traveled back to the U.S. with Eduardo Soares, the director of Copag USA. Eduardo owned a playing card factory in Brazil, which he successfully steered through hyper-inflation and other crises that plagued the country until he sold it to Copag in 1999. His Pinguim brand cards are still manufactured by Copag. Eduardo is very well regarded in our industry and I learn something new about playing cards every time I speak with him. Soon I was back within sight of the Blue Ridge Mountains here in Virginia, where our headquarters are located.

It is always difficult to end a story without moralizing. My impression of Copag is similar to that I had of a couple of large Brazilian banks that I worked with about ten years ago. These are companies that were tempered by the tough business environments of the "old" Brazil that are now thriving in the "new" Brazil. But Copag is a world-class operation that manages to compete with particular grace, as shown by the small courtesies that they offered to their guests. Thank you.