Morgancoat: The South African manufacturer turning local into an advantage
Morgancoat is showing how South African manufacturing can compete globally by solving customer problems faster and keeping production close to home.
Look around a supermarket and almost everything you see carries a label. Before the brand, barcode and product information are added, many of those labels begin as rolls of self-adhesive material.
South African manufacturer Morgancoat makes enough of that material every year to cover Robben Island about 11 times.
Its story began in 2007, when Richard Morgan and his father Mike developed machinery to apply recyclable barrier coatings to paper. The idea was ahead of its time, so they adapted the machinery and began manufacturing self-adhesive label material instead.
Marc Black joined as a sales representative in 2012, eventually becoming Richard’s equal partner. Then, in 2021, Richard died in a helicopter accident at just 38.
Marc suddenly found himself leading a business that had not yet fully turned the corner.
Today, Morgancoat competes against some of the world’s biggest manufacturers by leaning into what being South African allows it to do differently: move quickly, hold stock locally, adapt and solve customer problems close to home.
When Covid disrupted global shipping and made stock increasingly difficult to track, Morgancoat didn’t wait for normality to return. It built its own systems to improve visibility across containers, manufacturing and stock.
Its MC Express model followed the same principle, holding commonly used materials closer to customers and reducing some delivery times from days to hours.
That points to a valuable lesson for every business: Solve the new problem.
Customer frustrations change. Risks move. Expectations rise. Businesses that keep solving yesterday’s problem risk becoming less relevant, while those that identify the new friction and build around it can create an entirely new competitive advantage.
For Morgancoat, the next chapter includes expanding its fast-stock model, strengthening its management team and encouraging more major South African brands to test locally manufactured materials against imported alternatives.
Because sometimes competing globally starts with understanding exactly what you can do better locally.
Future50 celebrates the established South African businesses building our future prosperity. Listen to Morgancoat’s full feature and nominate another great South African business through the Jacaranda FM, Smile 90.4 FM and East Coast Radio websites.
This Future50 feature was presented by Pavlo Phitidis from Aurik and powered by FNB Business.
For more stories of Future50 businesses, or to nominate your business, head here.
