Dipping a Toe and Making Waves: GelatoConnect at FESPA 2025

When GelatoConnect exhibited alongside MH&P at FESPA 2025 for the first time last week, the team wasn’t sure what to expect. However, it quickly became clear that there is a huge appetite from print shop owners, operations managers and CTO’s to learn more about how to streamline their workflows with software.

I tried to catch up with Minna Philipson, Gelato’s Chief Marketing Officer, on several occasions, but between her packed SmartHub keynote—'Why the Future of Print Is Personal – and What That Means for Your Business’ —and her co-hosted session on ‘Branding & Marketing in the Print World’ with Georgette Sawan from MH&P, Minna was in constant demand. Both presentations attracted significant interest and led to dozens of follow-up conversations at the stand!

When I did finally manage to talk to Minna, she explains: ‘Print runs are shrinking, and SKU counts are exploding due to an increase in personalisation, yet many still rely on manual processes and fragmented systems that cause significant inefficiencies.’ GelatoConnect offers a single, modular operating system to manage, monitor and automate every step of a digital order—from procurement and inventory through workflow, printing, packing and shipping. ‘Switching from 10,000 of one to one of 10,000 demands an entirely different workflow,’ Philipson adds.

Asking Minna for an example, she describes a major U.S. print service provider that had spent seven months digitising just 180 SKUs. GelatoConnect’s AI-driven onboarding processed that provider’s entire 300,000-item catalogue in eight days—and ‘next time it’ll take five seconds,’ she points out humorously. That leap in speed transforms not only go-live timelines but also the platform’s network value: every new SKU instantly becomes available to the next printer on the Gelato system.

Even with clear ROI—sub-0.35% error rates, 98% on-time dispatch and 10–25% lower shipping costs within three months—Philipson warns that mindset remains the biggest hurdle. ‘Many shops have operated the same way for decades; believing software can transform your production floor as profoundly as a new press requires a shift in perspective,’ she says.

GelatoConnect pursues a straightforward ambition: one print shop, one software. Today the platform excels at digital, product-based runs—web-to-print and API-driven orders that already account for roughly 25% of many shops’ revenues. What’s next? Philipson says they will ‘chew the elephant bit by bit’, adding new capabilities and modules in close collaboration with customers and guided by real-world ROI targets. 

Philipson stresses that their product roadmap is shaped entirely by customer priorities and real-world challenges: ‘It’s driven by customers handing us their million-pound admin headaches—and asking us how we can help them solve it.’

Personally, I think that what GelatoConnect’s presence at FESPA shows us, is that comprehensive software solutions are as critical to the next wave of printing as the presses themselves—especially if the trend for personalisation continues to grow at its current rate.

For more information or questions about Gelato or GelatoConnect please visit https://www.gelato.com/uk/connect