Dave Savastano, Editor07.31.15
T&K Toka Co. Ltd.
34-8 Honcho, Itabashi-ku
Tokyo, Japan 173-0001
Phone: +81-3-3963-0512
Fax: +81-3-3963-5249
www.tk-toka.co.jp/english/
E-mail: overseas@tk-toka.co.jp
Sales: $405 million (¥48,659 million yen) (consolidated).
Major Products: UV offset, letterpress, flexo, news, waterless and screen inks; sheetfed offset inks; web offset heatset inks; waterless offset inks; gravure and flexo packaging inks; water-based varnishes; metal decorating products; synthetic resins.
Key Personnel: Shigetoshi Nishimori, manager, overseas sales; Hiro Iida, sales representative in charge of America; Hironori Yanagase, sales representative in charge of Europe; Jun Wada, sales representative in charge of synthetic resin; Ryuichi Kurimoto, marketing director; Masanao Kobayashi, technical director.
Number of Employees: 1,600.
Comments: The largest UV ink specialist in the world, T&K Toka (the T&K in the company’s name stands for Technology and Kindness) had another excellent year in 2014, with sales growing approximately 5% to ¥48,659 million yen ($405 million), although an accounting change that took place in the third quarter of 2014 decreased the total sales.
“We had a good year, especially the UV ink segment,” said Hiro Iida, sales representative in charge of America for T&K Toka. “In the USA, because of strong economic growth, we had very good results. And in Asia, the region has been growing year by year, so it is an important market too.
“I saw that the low energy UV systems were paid attention much more than previous years,” Iida added. “Although it has not been a big topic since several years ago, it seems that low energy UV systems were one of the hottest topics in 2014, and I saw many printers who were pleased to install it.”
T&K Toka has a sizable global presence. Hangzhou Toka Ink, T&K Toka’s joint venture, is the second-largest ink company in China. The company also has operations in Korea, Hong Kong, Indonesia and Bangladesh. In addition, T&K Toka has a U.S. distributor, Top Level Ink, in Dallas, TX, as well as distributors in Spain and Brazil. UV printing has enjoyed growth worldwide, as companies are adding UV capabilities to their portfolio.
“Basically it has been a big trend in the USA for years to switch from conventional printing to UV printing to obtain efficiency, job speed, environmental cleanliness, etc., and now, there are more reasons to switch to UV printing,” Iida observed.
When printers look to switch over to UV, cost and job efficiency are typically the first topics discussed, but there is much more value to printing with UV.
“Those reasons are very attractive to the printers, but I would also say that the valuation of the business will be wider,” Iida said. “In the case of UV printing, printers can print plastic too. There are more ways to add values on printed matters. As the world’s leading manufacturer of UV inks, we would like to share more ideas with printers.”
T&K Toka works closely with its customers to ensure that the inks and presses are perfectly in tune.
“Always our most important mission is to provide valuable UV inks to the market,” Iida said. “If the ink is not suitable to the press, UV system, substrates, etc., or if the ink quality is unstable, the press cannot achieve 100%. Our mission is to provide the ink that brings out the press potential 100%, no matter if it is for regular UV system, H-UV system or LED system, no matter if it is printed on paper or plastic.
“Another important responsibility is technical support,” Iida added. “No matter where the printer is, we will make a color,or customize for them, even it is a request for one can of ink.”
Raw material costs remain high, which is a challenge for all ink companies.
“Material costs keep increasing or remaining at a high level,” Iida said. “This is always our and all ink manufacturers’ concern, and we cannot be optimistic about the future. We have been trying our best to get higher efficiency and considering the materials we use, but still, we have been spending a lot of time over these years about the material cost increasing.”
T&K Toka’s R&D teams are renowned for their formulation skills, and the company has turned its attention to the narrow web flexo field.
“We have new UV flexo inks that we developed last year,” Iida reported. “Our new UV flexo ink, UV Flexo MCS Type, combines good price and Toka quality. It is fairly new for us to work in the narrow web market in the USA, and we are proud of this product. Since the UV flexo press and printing supplies have been improved very much, the printing quality is greatly increasing, which is the reason why UV flexo is a very hot topic now. Our ink will be very suitable for this direction.”
34-8 Honcho, Itabashi-ku
Tokyo, Japan 173-0001
Phone: +81-3-3963-0512
Fax: +81-3-3963-5249
www.tk-toka.co.jp/english/
E-mail: overseas@tk-toka.co.jp
Sales: $405 million (¥48,659 million yen) (consolidated).
Major Products: UV offset, letterpress, flexo, news, waterless and screen inks; sheetfed offset inks; web offset heatset inks; waterless offset inks; gravure and flexo packaging inks; water-based varnishes; metal decorating products; synthetic resins.
Key Personnel: Shigetoshi Nishimori, manager, overseas sales; Hiro Iida, sales representative in charge of America; Hironori Yanagase, sales representative in charge of Europe; Jun Wada, sales representative in charge of synthetic resin; Ryuichi Kurimoto, marketing director; Masanao Kobayashi, technical director.
Number of Employees: 1,600.
Comments: The largest UV ink specialist in the world, T&K Toka (the T&K in the company’s name stands for Technology and Kindness) had another excellent year in 2014, with sales growing approximately 5% to ¥48,659 million yen ($405 million), although an accounting change that took place in the third quarter of 2014 decreased the total sales.
“We had a good year, especially the UV ink segment,” said Hiro Iida, sales representative in charge of America for T&K Toka. “In the USA, because of strong economic growth, we had very good results. And in Asia, the region has been growing year by year, so it is an important market too.
“I saw that the low energy UV systems were paid attention much more than previous years,” Iida added. “Although it has not been a big topic since several years ago, it seems that low energy UV systems were one of the hottest topics in 2014, and I saw many printers who were pleased to install it.”
T&K Toka has a sizable global presence. Hangzhou Toka Ink, T&K Toka’s joint venture, is the second-largest ink company in China. The company also has operations in Korea, Hong Kong, Indonesia and Bangladesh. In addition, T&K Toka has a U.S. distributor, Top Level Ink, in Dallas, TX, as well as distributors in Spain and Brazil. UV printing has enjoyed growth worldwide, as companies are adding UV capabilities to their portfolio.
“Basically it has been a big trend in the USA for years to switch from conventional printing to UV printing to obtain efficiency, job speed, environmental cleanliness, etc., and now, there are more reasons to switch to UV printing,” Iida observed.
When printers look to switch over to UV, cost and job efficiency are typically the first topics discussed, but there is much more value to printing with UV.
“Those reasons are very attractive to the printers, but I would also say that the valuation of the business will be wider,” Iida said. “In the case of UV printing, printers can print plastic too. There are more ways to add values on printed matters. As the world’s leading manufacturer of UV inks, we would like to share more ideas with printers.”
T&K Toka works closely with its customers to ensure that the inks and presses are perfectly in tune.
“Always our most important mission is to provide valuable UV inks to the market,” Iida said. “If the ink is not suitable to the press, UV system, substrates, etc., or if the ink quality is unstable, the press cannot achieve 100%. Our mission is to provide the ink that brings out the press potential 100%, no matter if it is for regular UV system, H-UV system or LED system, no matter if it is printed on paper or plastic.
“Another important responsibility is technical support,” Iida added. “No matter where the printer is, we will make a color,or customize for them, even it is a request for one can of ink.”
Raw material costs remain high, which is a challenge for all ink companies.
“Material costs keep increasing or remaining at a high level,” Iida said. “This is always our and all ink manufacturers’ concern, and we cannot be optimistic about the future. We have been trying our best to get higher efficiency and considering the materials we use, but still, we have been spending a lot of time over these years about the material cost increasing.”
T&K Toka’s R&D teams are renowned for their formulation skills, and the company has turned its attention to the narrow web flexo field.
“We have new UV flexo inks that we developed last year,” Iida reported. “Our new UV flexo ink, UV Flexo MCS Type, combines good price and Toka quality. It is fairly new for us to work in the narrow web market in the USA, and we are proud of this product. Since the UV flexo press and printing supplies have been improved very much, the printing quality is greatly increasing, which is the reason why UV flexo is a very hot topic now. Our ink will be very suitable for this direction.”