Quad to Close Its Retail Insert Printing Plant in Michigan

Quad announced it will shutter its 145,000-sq.-ft. Greenville, Michigan, retail advertising insert printing operation by May 16, 2025, impacting 72 workers employed there. The work is being shifted to Quad’s Lomira, Wisconsin, and Winchester, Virginia, locations.

Impacted Greenville workers will receive a comprehensive separation package that includes severance pay, continuation of healthcare benefits, and career transition assistance through a career counseling company, according to Quad officials.

“This decision in no way reflects the quality and performance of employees in the plant, all of whom performed well and worked hard to make the plant succeed,” Quad pointed out in a prepared statement. “Traditional media channels like retail advertising inserts face ongoing challenges as brands and marketers shift spending to other channels, including digital, and address escalating USPS postage rates, which have increased by more than 50% in the last three years alone.”

Quad added that it continues to optimize its print manufacturing operations to align capacity with these decreased industry volumes. Printing of free-standing inserts (FSIs) has been hit especially hard, partially compounded by circulation and readership declines in the newspaper industry that have resulted in the demise of several printed newspapers.

For example, at the recent Inkjet Summit, Magnum Digital Solutions presented a case study about Target, which no longer prints any retail advertising inserts in the United States. Instead, the retailer relies on signage within all its stores to promote special sales promotions and discounts.

Magnum developed a system that enables signs (including tape being affixed to each sign automatically) to be produced at the individual store level. Since every Target store layout is different, the signs must be organized according to each aisle at the store level to enable Target employees to easily place the signs in the proper places.

Originally Part of Former FSI Printing Powerhouse, Vertis

Citing industry overcapacity, the Greenville facility was purchased as part of Quad’s January 2013 acquisition of substantially all the assets of Baltimore-based Vertis, which had filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in 2012. The acquisition was for $258.5 million, which included the payment of approximately $88.5 million for current assets that were in excess of normalized working capital requirements.

This latest move follows Quad’s closure of another former Vertis retail advertising insert facility. In September 2019, Quad shut down its nearly 170,000-sq.-ft. Shakopee, Minnesota, retail advertising insert printing plant, impacting approximately 140 employees.

Prior to Vertis, the Shakopee operation had multiple owners, including American Color and Gannett Publishing since first opening in the early 1980s as Shakopee Valley Printing, a then-privately owned and operated business by the Ken Theis family.

As of December 31, 2024, Quad reported operating 38 global manufacturing and distribution facilities, and employing more than 12,000 employees. Most of its operations are in the United States, where it operates approximately 30 printing plants and approximately 50 client-dedicated teams.

Quad was ranked No. 3 on the 2024 Printing Impressions 300 list of the largest printers in the U.S. and Canada, reporting most recent fiscal year sales of $2.96 billion. Of that total amount, Quad indicated that inserts comprised 12% of its revenues. Click here to access the complete 2024 Printing Impressions 300 rankings.