It all started in a small silk-screen printing
workshop back in 1982. Today the company focuses on the best mechanical and
chemical hi-tech equipment. In San Felice sul Panaro there is Serital, which
today has a team of twenty professionals for a turnover of two million euros.
Giampaolo Colletti interviews Dario Castellazzi, CEO of Serital for FARE
INSIEME
di Giampaolo Colletti
@gpcolletti
Photocredit: Giacomo Maestri e Francesca Aufiero
The
entrepreneurial story I am about to tell you did not originate in the
Emilia-Romagna region. Or rather, the company takes every detail from Emilia,
from the birthplace of the founder to the headquarters. Because Emilia is truly
in its DNA. But to understand the genesis of this enterprise we have to move
between the canals and the 'calle' of marvellous Venice, when thirty years
earlier a group of young off-site architecture students, constantly travelling
from Modena to Venice on a battered Fiat Cinquecento, decided to create from
scratch a very particular business linked to the printing of customised
T-shirts. Of course, it all started off as a game. And yet time would have
proved them right. Because that game would become business, as those shirts
would become cult among the students. To be honest, the spark immediately
involved a fifth friend, in this case from Forlì. He was the one who suggested
to the group to print T-shirts. So the boys, armed with a lot of patience and a
desire to do things, equipped themselves with a frame with the lion of San
Marco embossed on it, the symbol of the university. And they began to sell
those home-made T-shirts for real with unexpected success among the students
and with the satisfaction of financially supporting part of their studies. This
is how a small artisan silk-screen printing workshop was born almost as a joke. Of that original intuition
Dario Castellazzi, today CEO of Serital, jealously preserves a framed T-shirt.
Because certain businesses, carried out with a goliardic spirit, can really
change the life course of people and related companies, which then - as is well
known - are made up of people. «After that successful prank we asked ourselves:
why not make it a business? After all, this is how Serital was born», recalls
Castellazzi.
An artisan and hi-tech soul. The company is based in San Felice sul Panaro, a town of
less than ten thousand souls in the low Modena plain, about thirty-five kilometres
north-east of the capital city and a few kilometres from the municipalities of
Mirandola and Finale Emilia. It has twenty employees with a reference market
that ranges in almost all sectors: from mechanics to food, from biomedicine to
construction. «We print on all media except fabric and our customers are mainly
industries and multinationals», Castellazzi explains. Serital closed 2021 with
a turnover of 2 million euros. Even if the prospects for growth are holding it
back, considering the increases in raw materials and energy costs that grow
exponentially. «However, from the beginning, the enthusiasm for our work has
remained unchanged, which is never an end in itself. Despite technological
innovation, we carry out projects in silk-screen printing and pad printing on
challenges that are difficult to meet. To remain competitive in small
production quantities, we have created a high-tech unit, investing in digital
printing machinery», says Castellazzi. Everything starts from a small screen
printing workshop in 1982, which is now powered by the best mechanical and
chemical technologies. There is an artisan soul in the attention to detail, but
that is accelerated thanks to the intensive use of technologies. «Screen
printing is simple, what makes the difference is the chemistry of the inks,
which require the most suitable one for each type of support. Look, this is a
skill that differentiates us from others. Companies that have always trusted us
expect both the quality and the repeatability of our prints. Our collaborators
are mainly female figures who have patience and attention to detail in their
DNA. The reference market is the national one, even if the product arrives
abroad through customers. For example, we saw some of our products at the San Diego airport. Our
customers are loyal and recognise us as reliable and punctual suppliers», says
Castellazzi.
To fall and rise again. In the history of the company there is also the
dramatic experience of the earthquake. «Fortunately, the damage was limited to
the building and the machines. We immediately rolled up our sleeves and
demolished and rebuilt the building from the pillars also thanks to the
precious help of my son, an engineer and professor at the University of
Bologna, who took a sabbatical to help us out. But all the staff helped us,
together with the suppliers and customers who gave us great solidarity as well
as the Banca Popolare dell’Emilia Romagna, which supported us with a lot of
financial help», recalls Castellazzi. Impossible feats thus become feasible
with teamwork. Serital was also invited to the Saie in Bologna as an example of
a reality that rebuilt the property in just six months. «The future is made of
attention to sustainability. We have purchased six thousand metres of land near
our factory: here we will build a new facility and on the same land we are
building a small wood of two thousand square metres for CO2 compensation, as
well as a photovoltaic field», says Castellazzi. To look ahead, with courage
and initiative. Come on, Serital.
https://podcast.confindustriaemilia.it/
Read the other interviews
