Toly: offering a complete platform for development and services!

Local solutions, product diversity, offering a complete range of services... Andy Gatesy, President of Toly, doesn’t beat around the bush because the challenges are considerable: Geopolitical issues, sustainable development with European regulations on packaging waste that will transform the sector, cybersecurity, the development of artificial intelligence and, as a family business, managing the succession of the company.
His vision for the future is to ‘become a global platform for the development of beauty products’. Explanations.

The sector is evolving rapidly and becoming increasingly complex! It’s enough to make you lose your cool, isn’t it?

Andy Gatesy:  It’s clear that we are moving towards a deglobalised world. If we want to remain a world leader, we have to offer ‘local’ production solutions to our customers. That’s why we’ve built a global production network with factories in Asia, Europe, the United States and Mexico.
Of course, our heritage is in plastics manufacturing, but I ask my team: what will happen if, in 10 years’ time, plastic is no longer the material of choice for the beauty industry? Does that mean Toly is dead? Absolutely not! Today, we offer packaging made of glass, metal, paper and new, more environmentally friendly materials. All this is thanks to a network of partners and strategic alliances.
Although Toly has been manufacturing for over 50 years, we are no longer just a manufacturing company or an industrial model.
Today, we offer our customers a complete range of services.
– Full service: ready-to-use packaging, rather than just packaging.
– Design and branding services through our Toly design studios.
– Innovation: we are considered one of the most innovative companies in our sector.
We create up to 200 new packaging products every year and have our own innovation centre in Malta.
I am convinced that this platform concept is unique and will spearhead our growth plan for the coming years.

And there are many challenges!

Andy Gatesy: Yes, that’s true! But over the last 35 years, I’ve faced many challenges: the collapse of ERM (Exchange Rate Mechanism), the two Gulf Wars, the financial and economic crisis, and Covid-19. But each time, we’ve survived and reinvented ourselves. To sustain your business, you have to constantly reinvent your business model and tackle challenges with determination.
We have had to demonstrate agility and resilience.
Today, there are many challenges ahead:
Firstly, geopolitical issues. We are living in a state of permanent crisis (wars, particularly in Europe), customs duties, climate change and extreme weather conditions, etc. In these troubled times, I try to tell my team to focus on what we can control rather than worry about events beyond our control.
The second area of concern is the new European packaging waste regulations, which will transform our sector. When I look at my product displays, none of the products we have manufactured over the last fifty years will comply with this future legislation. So this is a major challenge, but also a real opportunity.
The third challenge is cybersecurity. Your systems are under constant attach from the outside world, so it is critical to protect yourself.
The fourth challenge is artificial intelligence. This is probably the most discussed topic in the business world. Our challenge is to figure out how to use this new technology to stay ahead of the curve. At the EDGE conference a few weeks ago, we learned how to use Chat GPT as a strategic partner and create an AI-based board of directors.
The fifth challenge is my succession. We are a family-owned and therefore private company.
I have a duty to continue my father’s legacy, as I have done over the past few years by making Toly one of the world’s leading suppliers to the beauty industry, and I fully intend to maintain this entrepreneurial energy by passing the torch to the next generation.

Toly’s story is unlike any other!

Andy Gatesy: As you know, Toly was founded by my father.
Born in Eastern Europe, he fled not once but twice in his life in search of a better future, crossing a minefield penniless with only the clothes on his back. He borrowed a pound from a bus driver to start his new life in the West. He is clearly an example of courage and determination.
In the 1950s, he started out as a mould maker in the plastics industry.
He moved to London and worked in several sectors, including toys, and in the mid-1960s he completed his first project for the beauty industry.
In the late 1960s, central London was not an ideal location for a factory, so he sought to expand his business abroad.
In 1969, he arrived in Malta and set up a company.
He acquired his first factory in 1970 and began production a year later. So we have been in Malta for fifty-four years.
I joined the company when I was 21. It was 1985 and Toly was a British company that already had a satellite factory in Malta.
I quickly noticed all the French and international brands we weren’t working with and said to my father, ‘I want these brands as customers... We have to find a way to work with them.’
I also went to the American market, the largest consumer market in the world, and hired an agent to sell our products.
After a year, he wrote to me: ‘Andy, you have to give up! You’ll never sell a product made in Malta on the American market.’
Never mind! I suggested to my father that we open our own office, which we did in 1987. Today, with offices in New York and Los Angeles, the American market is our most important market.
I did the same thing in Paris in 1989. Two years later, in 1991, following my father’s death, I became CEO... I was only 27 years old.
In 1994, we established ourselves in the Benelux countries and really began our international expansion.
Today, we work with 23 of the 30 largest beauty brands in the world.
Not only with large multinationals , but also with the indie, emerging and celebrity brands.

After Europe and the United States... China!

Andy Gatesy: In the late 1990s, it was clear that the world was relocating its supply chains to China. How could we survive in Malta? Most customers didn’t even know where Malta was.
Following the old adage, ‘if you can’t beat them, join them,’ I went to China, where I started doing a little business and then found partners to develop our own factory, which opened in 2005.
Over the past 20 years, we have established and developed important partnerships with factories in China, South Korea, Taiwan, Vietnam and India.
South Korea has been a tremendous success for us. India, on the other hand, has not worked out.
Despite building a state-of-the-art factory there in partnership with Unilever India, the business was simply not big enough to be profitable.
In 2014, I decided to refocus the group. And in five years, we doubled our turnover from £50 million to £100 million.

Over the years, you have evolved from a packaging converter to a solutions provider... What do you offer today?

Andy Gatesy: When I took up my position as CEO in 1991, I said that we needed to change our way of thinking and become a packaging supplier for the world’s leading beauty brands.
Of course, we were still manufacturing moulds and processing plastics, but thanks to our decoration and assembly capabilities, we were able to create beautiful products.
More recently, we have become a solutions provider for the beauty industry built upon our heritage of manufacturing.
Now, my vision is different. It is to become a global beauty product development platform.
Why a platform? Because platforms are fast-growing, agile businesses. Take other sectors such as Uber as an example.
It’s a platform and it has become the largest taxi company in the world.
They connect a driver with someone looking for a taxi.
I want Toly to become the Uber of the beauty industry.
Not just an app on your phone, but a connector of products, services and features for our customers.
Our platform is based on three pillars:
Global manufacturing
Product diversity
A range of different services

But I also believe that at Toly we are different:
– We remain a private company with a long-term vision and a family spirit. Most of our competitors now belong to large groups or private equity funds. It’s a very different philosophy.
– We have a global sales network to support our multinational customers and regional leaders.
– We offer global production based on our technologies.
– We have developed a highly flexible and innovation-driven business model.

What advice would you give to the younger generation?

Andy Gatesy: Last year, I won the Entrepreneur of the Year award in Malta. I was asked the same question.
I have divided my advice into five key areas:
‘Passion.’
Be passionate about what you do and follow your passion, because you will be spending a lot of time on it.

‘Courage.’ Be courageous, be bold, be persistent, be determined. Never give up and believe in yourself. As my father always said, ‘If the door is closed, go through the window, and if the window is closed, climb down the chimney.’

‘Strategy.’
It’s not about competing to be the best. You have to be unique and different and to be different, you have to think differently
‘Teamwork’.
If you want to go fast, go alone... But if you want to go far, go together. In other words, build a great team of like-minded people who support you and are committed to success.

And finally
‘Love’.
Love what you do. Love those you do it with, your team. Love those you do it for, your customers. If you love your business more than your competitors love theirs, you will win.
For me, the future is not an upgrade of the present, but rather an invitation to think differently. When faced with a challenge, we must respond ‘yes’ and then we will find a solution.