Garino Hermanos celebrates 100th anniversary

The company was founded as a printer of basic sheet-fed products in 1920 by Guillermo Garino Brusco, the son of an immigrant Italian family established in the country in the late 19th century. His brother Americo soon joined him. Their business started as an association with Guillermo’s brother-in-law, Juan Schmidt, and required all of Guillermo’s savings for his wedding. The wedding had to wait, but thus began a company that is now 100 years old and is still owned and run by their grandchildren.

Based in a local market of under 3.5 million people, diversification has been a key facet of Garino Hermanos’ history since its foundation. Originally named Schmidt & Garino, the company installed Uruguay’s first business forms press in 1949 thanks to a partnership with UK-based Lamson Paragon (later acquired by Moore Business Forms in 1975).

In 1952, Garino bought out Schmidt and renamed the company Garino Hermanos (the latter is the Spanish word for brothers). It continued to focus on business forms and sheet-fed products before – under the leadership of Julio and Raúl Garino, sons of Don Guillermo – branching out into security printing with checks and tickets in the 1980s. The brothers set up the company’s Information Services division, which began as a partnership with IBM.

Seeing the business forms market in decline, the company – now led by Guillermo Garino, grandson of the founder Guillermo Garino, and Jorge Garrido, grandson of Americo – moved into label printing in 1998 with the installation of a Nilpeter FA 2400 flexo press. 

Family connection 
Today, the company is split between two divisions which each represent an equal share of the overall business: Information Services handles transpromo work, software development, document digitalization, cross media and electronic billing. The second division, Graphic Arts Services, produces security documents and business forms on three Muller Martini web offset presses; and tickets, labels and promotional products including scratch-off cards on its one HP Indigo and three Nilpeter presses. Label converting takes place on equipment from GM and Prati.

The family connection remains strong to this day. As well as the founders’ grandsons Guillermo Garino and Jorge Garrido, a third – Ignacio Garino – leads the Information Services division. A number of their children, nephews and nieces are involved: Carina Conte is executive director; Gabriella Garino works in sales; Esteban Garrido and Edgardo Garrido are both engineers.

Garino Hermanos has maintained a leadership position in its local market thanks to consistent investment in new technology and high levels of product quality and innovation. ‘I believe there are three essential pillars for our continued success,’ says Guillermo Garino. ‘The first is our focus on customer satisfaction and our undivided attention to market requirements. The second is continued investment in technology, always in search for greater efficiency and flexibility. Finally, the stability and quality of our team and our ability to acquire and share product knowledge within the organization.’

According to Jorge Garrido, the company’s traditional focus on security printing has proved an asset when shifting to serve the pharmaceutical industry and to comply with PS9000 quality standard, the company’s most recent certification. It is also certified to ISO 9001-2015.

‘The pandemic has complicated everything,’ says Garrido of the state of the Uruguayan market today. ‘Technological transformation is arduous and costly; navigating a business in today’s world is a great challenge. Living in a small country such as Uruguay, with a small local market, adds further challenges. Export business to other Latin American countries has fallen recently. But our goal has always been to provide our clients with high quality and good service, as well as developing innovative products. That is how it has been since my grandfather’s time, and it is still the case today.’