---

While the environment continues to be a key issue for ink manufacturers, they are also striving to keep pace with the latest presses.

"The focus of sheetfed inks – conventional and UV – is to formulate inks that will perform on the new generation of high-speed presses and also run alcohol free and reduced," explains Claire Ashby technical sales and support manager at Heidelberg Graphic Equipment.

She adds that improved stability on press, which makes it easier to achieve and maintain ISO 12647, is also an important area of development.

That said, printers are taking a more holistic approach to consumables and that has an impact on ink buying trends.
"Buyers are beginning to look at the whole consumables selection and the potential to maximise the print process while demonstrating cost savings. This is achieved by using a package of optimised consumables," says Ashby. "Customers tend to buy all their consumables from one supplier, not only to get a good deal, but also to ensure that the consumables package is optimised, therefore offering maximum savings to the entire print process. In fact customers are willing to pay more for their ink when they can clearly see that there is an improvement in mileage."

Environmental concerns
The increasing demand for uncoated materials to improve the environmental footprint of print projects means that printers need more from their inks when it comes to setting and drying. 

Ashby believes that the market will continue to demand a greater choice of fast-drying, vegetable oil-based inks so that environmental demands are met.

She advises buyers to look for a consumables supplier that can offer an optimised package that will benefit the entire print process and that can offer full technical support.

"Buyers should be asking consumables suppliers to help them save money within their production process by optimising certain performance criteria of the products while still producing a high-quality print result," she adds.

---

WHAT'S NEW IN... SHEETFED OFFSET & SCREEN PROCESS INKS
• This autumn Van Son distributor Inks & Printing Technologies released its new offset ink range Quickson Premium. The launch follows on from Van Son’s Quickson Pro with Perfect designed for B2 and B1 straight presses. The four-colour series allows Van Son to provide a vegetable oil-based ISO12647-2 formulation ink for all sheetfed offset press formats
• Earlier this year Heidelberg also launched its new Saphira Universal Plus process. Heidelberg says that its customers can benefit from improvements to pigment strength, mileage, drying speed and stability on the press