The firm plans to implement selective price increases to assure sufficient coverage of raw material cost increases needed to ensure availability of raw materials required for the production of inks.

Flint CPS Inks, part of Flint Group, specialises in offset and publication gravure inks for web and sheetfed printers.

The company says that raw material availability and the costs of raw materials for oil-based products is likely to continue to be an issue as “the supplier base narrows and refocuses capacity and investments to other industry segments”.

As India and China adopt stricter environmental regulations on pigments and base chemicals manufacturing, factories are closing, which is reducing the quantities available, and therefore increasing costs.

Michael Podd, chief procurement officer of Flint CPS Inks, comments: “Flint CPS Inks continues to manage the increasingly uncertain raw material situation through our established contracted priority supply of key raw materials.

“We also decrease our expenses annually through labour cost leadership, but in some fields it is impossible to completely mitigate these cost hikes, especially in a market that is seeing reduced demand.”

Fredrik Broman, EMEA Web Business director, adds: “Over the course of the last couple of years, ink manufacturers have seen significant raw material cost increases.

“These have so far been absorbed and only to a very moderate extent been passed into the supply chain, however, to ensure we maintain high levels of product quality and service it has become necessary to increase customer prices.”

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