Waratah Group has bought Victorian large format print business Pumpkin Digital, in a move that will bring much of its wide format print inhouse.
Pumpkin has been owned by Rob and Pauline Koppel, with son Rhett Koppel the operations manager and daughter Jayanna Koppel running sales and project management. All will stay on under the Waratah ownership, with Aren Ghattas from Waratah joining Rob Koppple in running the business. Waratah will look to add staff to Pumpkin in time.
Pumpkin will eventually be brought into the Waratah Port Melbourne production centre, and will eventually be rebranded as Waratah, but for now it is business as usual.
Brett Chalmers, chief operating officer at Waratah said, "We wanted to have an inhouse production facility for our sign and display work. Pumpkin is an ideal fit, it is based on strong family values like Waratah, and has a high level of skill, expertise, and modern production equipment.
"We will still be sending a significant amount of wide format work out to our trusted suppliers, the Pumpkin deal will not cover all our needs in that regard."
Pumpkin is a 20 year old business, running both solvent and latex printers with dye and pigment inkjets, as well as flatbed UV printers, and a service to print directly onto plywood.
It provides a variety of services including inkjet up to 1500mm wide, solvent up to 2500mm wide, flatbed up to 3000 x 2000mm, and a variety of laminating and finishing services including installation. It specialises in the supply of posters / internal signage, mounted prints to a variety of substrates, display rollaways, wall graphics and external signage.
Waratah is one of the biggest print groups in Victoria, with a wide range of service offerings.