In 1981, a pioneering thought to produce Self-Adhesive Labels and Stickers evolved as a result of a study undertaken by a group of students on the “Role Performed by a Sales Representative selling to retail”. As a result, Sri Lanka experienced the first ever instance of the use of self-adhesive materials in promotional activities when Pure Beverages Co. Ltd., the marketers of Coca Cola, launched their COKE sticker in June 1981. The outcome was the manufacture of these products by M&E Group, which was the predecessor to M&E (Private) Ltd.,

This led to the use of self adhesive labels for product identification and a number of products began to use these to label short runs on polythene bags, metal containers, glass bottles etc. instead of printing long runs. These self adhesive labels were very popular in the more advanced countries, but in Sri Lanka the raw materials were expensive and the import tariffs restricted such usage. As time passed, the economies of using

Self-Adhesive labels became evident to many, and adoption was regular.

M&E became a well known source of supply for these products and they were able to source raw materials from some of the best suppliers worldwide, and their knowledge on the products, raw materials and application opportunities were unmatched in the market. The company had by this time established a good facility for screen printing and had tied up with other sources for offset and letterpress printing, prior to our own Offset Printing being set up in 1995.

In view of the ability to do high quality screen printing which had begun in a small way in 1981, there were requests for screen printing on materials other than self adhesive paper, as this market was growing. Therefore, the company began undertaking all screen printing work including the printing of self adhesive labels and promotional stickers.