Madeira Consorcio

77 Madeira Consorcio Meeting 17.2.2016

We visited  a printing plant in Cancela.

GM was founded in 1979. In the old days, when printing was done with much more laborious methods, it used to employ up to 65 persons. Nowadays, and with the island still in the grips of the Crisis, the company employs 15 staff. Some of them are with the company since more that 35 years, and salaries, Social Security and taxes are paid in time. The staff seems happy.

For pre-production, GM uses Apple computers. The designers receive the documents from the clients in digital format and after control and correction, prepare aluminium plates with several pages on one plate for the printing presses within two hours.

The printing plates are made of aluminium, the layout is fixed on it by laser; most of the printing machines (black & white , 2 colors, 4 colors) are made in Germany, and therefore may be old but still work well 🙂

Printing is followed by page assembly, cutting and if needed, by folding, the machines they use are very versatile. The amount of waste paper is enormous, it is collected  and sent to the mainland for recycling.

The company needs to invest a lot to keep up with the rapid development in the industry; on the other hand, they lost a lot of clients due to the crisis. The cost of paper and ink is high as well.

The company works in 8 hour shifts and could easily tripe their output with 2 more shifts, as in the old days.

Our discussion afterwards (not in the Café by the roundabout , closed 😦 but in a Pub in Canico:

We spoke about the search for the perfect product for Madeira.

Our banana is 70% “Cavendish” and will be hit hard once we get the bug here that demolishes the Cavendish plants in Latin America.

D. would promote  special wheat – for export as well as for E’s bread – and said that Madeira problem with the terrace plantation could be eased with the use of an open “Funicular” or “cliff railway” ( see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Funicular ). a railway with open cars (there is also one in Lisbon: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ascensor_da_Gl%C3%B3ria ). With such a machine, the access to old terraces and the transport of the harvest might be greatly improved.

D.& P. have 15 terraces on their land below their “platform” with the main house; this might be a perfect example of a property where to use such a railway.

E. knows of a place which employs such a Funicular, we’ll see if we can visit the place on the weekend.