Antalis follows on the heels of Map Merchant Group, who announced it was to raise prices by between 5-8% from 4 October.

Marketing director James Jarvis said the group was currently in negotiation with suppliers to mitigate the impact.

However he said Antalis is facing increases of up to 10% dependent upon supplier and grade, from this month.

"We realise any increase will not be welcomed, but we have no alternative but to increase our prices by between 5% and 10% from the 11th October," said Jarvis.

Over the past few weeks Antalis has received formal notification from paper, envelope and board mills of their decision to increase prices across all products.

Jarvis said the mills had quoted a significant increase in raw material and operating costs for their increases.

This coupled with increases in its own costs, particularly fuel, were given as the reason for the increase.

Other merchant companies are now likely to follow Map and Antalis' lead.

Story by Andy Scott