Flint Group Announces Offset, Commercial Ink Price Increases

Flint Group’s Offset Packaging Solutions and Commercial Publication Web Divisions announced further price increases across the company’s heatset ink, news ink, sheetfed ink, transfer media and pressroom chemical portfolios.

The paradigm shifting impact of the global pandemic upon the printing consumables market continues unabated with further shortages of core raw materials, human resources and logistical services, creating previously unforeseen instability within the printing consumables global supply chain.

“This once in a generational event has created a structural scarcity of core raw materials as upstream precursor and primary raw material providers within the supply chain are directing their reduced capacities to more lucrative industries than the printing consumables markets,” said Tony Lord, president of Flint Group’s CPW (Commercial Publication Web) and OPS (Offset Packaging Solutions) divisions. “This creates a binary impact of not only shortages of raw materials but an exponential increase in pricing for those raw materials we can obtain.

“As a consequence of our historical relationships with global suppliers of core raw materials, coupled with our extensive manufacturing infrastructure, we believe we are in the best position within the industry to ensure our strategic partners remain supplied with agreed volumes,” Lord added. “It is however an unavoidable consequence of prevailing market conditions, that we have no alternative whilst seeking to minimize the impact of price increases, it is inevitable that cost increases will be passed into the supply chain.

“We were hopeful the market instability seen during 2021 would have moderated but regrettably we see no possibility of a cessation in prevailing conditions for 2022,” Lord concluded.