The taskforce consists of the Belgian ministers for Economic Affairs and for Agriculture, as well as the State Secretary for Consumer Protection.
The open letter from FINAT, the European association for the self-adhesive label and narrow web packaging industry, followed a news article in Belgian newspaper HLN on supply chain problems in the agrofood sector that was brought to its attention.
In the letter, FINAT managing director Jules Lejeune said that in the HLN article, a statement was made about the current situation in the label industry.
“We have been drawing attention to the supply chain issues facing our industry since last summer, as a result of which not only consumables suppliers (inks, adhesives, chemicals, substrates) but also technology providers (chips, components) have been faced with shortages, increasing lead times and price increases.
“But since January, this situation has been aggravated by a continued strike in Finland at UPM Paper Mills, the largest supplier of backing papers for labels. The strike is now set to continue till mid-April [it has since been extended again to 30 April], but at the moment there is no end in sight as the parties concerned seem to have dug their heels in the melting snow.
“Our repeated appeals to the parties to take into consideration the downstream impact around Europe of the resulting paper shortages (also commercial print is suffering) have remained unanswered. This week, at the online shareholder meeting of UPM, not even a single reference was made to the impact of the strike beyond the immediate parties concerned (the leadership of UPM, the paper workers union Paperiliitto and the shareholders).
“As a result of these disruptions, the world’s leading trade exhibition for our industry, Labelexpo Europe that was to be held in Brussels at the end of April (10 halls in Brussels Expo, more than 600 exhibitors, almost 40,000 visitors), had to be cancelled, as equipment manufacturers cannot get the parts to complete their equipment, there are no label materials available to make demos, and finally, many label companies are forced to prioritise capacity issues at home as they cannot get materials to print, in spite of booming demand since the economic recovery in 2021.
“Already, even if this strike would end now, lead times have extended till beyond the summer given the current backlog (and it takes already a couple of weeks to start up a paper mill). We anticipate that in Q2 we will see severe disruptions in downstream industries like food and pharma. If products going into the stores or home deliveries cannot be labelled, this will have dramatic impact on households, at the time when a humanitarian disaster is unfolding in Europe due to the war in Ukraine.
“It would be good if your taskforce could take into consideration these effects, and through your counterparts in other countries, address this topic at the highest political level in Europe.
“This strike is no longer a Finnish labour dispute. Your supply chain problem is no longer a national issue. These issues have a pan-European dimension that demands a European answer.”
FINAT had already warned on the early effects of the UPM strike in February.
