The bosses of all three of the UK’s largest web printers have spoken out this week on the need to raise prices in the face of "unprecedented" hikes in input costs (see Briefing, page 8).

Wyndeham chief executive Paul Utting said: "Print has been its own worst enemy – obsessed with chasing volume at any cost in order to fill cheaply financed machinery.

"With raw material increases, volume isn’t the answer; in fact, at today’s market price an increase in volume simply increases losses."

Polestar chief executive Barry Hibbert added: "What we are now facing as an industry is unprecedented. I’ve never seen anything like this and it’s worrying because there’s no way that we can support or cover that level of increase.

"It’s mainly affecting equipment that is older generation because that’s already at breakeven at best and when you apply the energy and consumables increases on top of that it virtually wipes them out.

"So we’ll be having some discussions with the market about whether that capacity remains, in which case we’ve got to pass those price rises on, or we have to take the capacity out."

Wyndeham and Polestar are both cutting older capacity, while BGP chief executive David Holland said the printer had "resigned" some contractual work that was uneconomical.

Wyndeham’s latest bout of consolidation continued last Wednesday (1 June) when it launched a 30-day consultation with the 80 staff at Apple following a proposal to close the site on 30 June.

It said the decision to close the former Apple Web Offset, which operates three 64pp Uniset presses and an 8pp mini-web across three sites in Warrington, was triggered by the loss of two major contracts.

Printing of The Guardian’s weekend supplement The Guide is moving to Polestar as part of a larger contract arrangement, while Irish broadcaster RTÉ has decided to relocate the printing of its weekly television listings magazine, RTÉ Guide, to Ireland.

Wyndeham’s chief operating officer Roy Kingston said the loss of the titles had created "substantial capacity" the company had been unable to replace in the required timeframe, meaning it would have started to generate "unsustainable losses".

Meanwhile, Hibbert revealed that Polestar was close to finalising its own plans, which would likely see the firm cut 25% of its web offset capacity, either through shift reductions or by shutting down older presses, or a combination of the two.

"That is going to significantly reduce supply in the marketplace," Hibbert added. "Because if 25% of our capacity is basically making zilch profit and that’s a reflection of the marketplace then you’ve got to estimate that around 25% of the UK web offset capacity is going to be gone within months."

• Wyndeham Group has secured a three-year contract to print The Economist magazine, which has a weekly circulation of 210,000, and associated publications at its Peterborough site.

SECTOR CLOSURES SINCE 2001
• BGP Colchester, Century Web Offset, Cradley Print, Cooper Clegg, Duncan Web Offset, Graphoprint, Journal Print, NJP, Pillans & Waddies, Polestar (Anglia, East Kilbride, Greaves, Watford, Watmoughs), Quebecor World Corby, St Ives (Caerphilly, Andover, Gillingham), TPL, WE Berry, Wiltshire, Wyndeham (Apple*, Plymouth*)

*Proposed closure