In 1996 three friends came up with a new business idea: the development of a company that will take up a new business venture, well established in Europe, but not in Greece: toner, inkjet & ribbon regeneration. TONER ARTISTS was established.   We started up with investment on equipment and know how, always looking in the most advanced market on our sector in the world: the United States. Thus, we acquired advanced knowledge on the field establishing long term relationship with some of the largest regenerators & suppliers in the American and the European markets.   Although the Greek market was in its infancy, compared with the rest of the European market, quite soon TONER ARTISTS became the largest Greek supplier of regenerated products for large and medium-sized companies. Between 1996 and 2000, TONER ARTISTS was expanding rapidly in all personnel, sales and customer figures. Main emphasis was given on strict quality and "face-to-face" personalized customer care.   In 2000, the company enters a new philosophy and era. The stimulus came from our customers that by time-to-time requested the service of a defective printer, or the periodical maintenance of their printers. Thus, we started a new vertical Service & Maintenance Department. Our philosophy moved from the "consumables for your printers" to the new concept "Anything for your printers".   The company is renamed: TONER & PRINTER ARTISTS®.   What is our target? Just the same as when we started:   To remain a friendly, face-to-face customer care company.   As well as to establish the quality regenerated printer consumables in the Greek market, produced in a European and not in a far away country, under strict quality production procedures, based on International Standards.   What is difficult for our European and American colleagues to understand is the vigorous effort needed for the establishment of quality regenerated products in the Greek market. The pricing of OEM printer consumables in our market is the lowest in the whole of Europe. Thus, in order to offer a 30-40% discount in regenerated products, in order to make them appealing for customers, we have to cut down production costs without sacrificing quality (the replacement of ALL worn-out parts, all required electronic and mechanical tests that have to be carried out etc). Just take into account that in the moment we carry a 10-20% lower compatibles retail pricing, we face exactly the same cost of raw materials with an –equal scale- company in Germany, France or UK.   We are not getting anxious about our future. Since we started, a year-to-year 30% increase in sales shows us that we are in the right side of the river. It is just that we sometimes feel a little proud.   We feel proud when, in the procedure of benchmarking our products, we discover that they are equal and in many cases stand in a much better place than other (well known) European brands. We feel proud when we keep inventing new technical solutions that we kindly share with our colleagues around the world.   And, at last, we feel proud we diverse hundred of tons of useful materials from the landfills and turn them to what they deserve to be: useful products. As we say to our customers: "throwing an empty cartridge is like throwing your car away when you are running out of petrol..."