QLM Labelmakers has created an annual $2000 Label Apprentice of the Year Award to recognise the next generation of Australian label printers.

The award will begin next year and chosen with the Label and Tag Makers Association (Latma) as part of the industry’s yearly Label Awards.

QLM chief executive Simon Pugh announced the award’s creation at the Label Awards in Melbourne and committed to funding it for the next 10 years.

The award is similar to the Lithographic Institute of Australia’s Graduate of the Year Award, which honours the best final-year apprentice in offset printing.

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Pugh says the award is in honour of his parents David and Del Pugh, the founders of QLM. David died in 1992 and Del retired in 2002 and is now terminally ill.

He says commissioning the award is a good way to give back to the industry as apprentices have always been an important part of QLM.

“Sometimes they are failures, but other times they go on to become key parts of your business or start their own companies,” he says.

In the announcement, Pugh recounted his life growing up in the label printing business from when his father ran it out of the basement of their house that he had dug out himself.

Later QLM moved to a nearby factory where he and his siblings worked in the ‘label mines’ doing odd jobs around the company.

Latma president Mark Easton says the award is a great gift that will keep the label printing industry alive and relevant into the future.

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