Some printing companies have seen their electricity bill leap by as much as four times when renewing their electricity contracts.

Wakefield printer Charlesworth, for example, was recently forced to take on a three-month contract at more than 275% its previous rate.

For some companies, warned Brendan Perring, general manager of the IPIA, the increase in prices may present an insurmountable challenge.

He told Printweek: “The print industry is a very energy intensive sector. 

“There’s just no way about it: if you have your overheads, your utilities, increase so significantly, it’s just another straw to break the camel’s back.”

Recent years have meant a series of crises for printers, he added. 

Brexit legislation’s chaotic impact on logistics, and the fact that commercial print lost, according to IPIA research, around 60% of its total revenue over the course of the pandemic, have now combined with a series of rises in the price of consumables to hit printers just as they entered a 'recovery phase'.

Paul Manning, managing director at London-based Rapidity, told Printweek he was “knocked off [his] feet” when recently looking at available contracts.

He said: “I don’t think everybody really realises quite the significance of the energy cost rises. What’s coming down the line is pretty traumatic.”

The best deals would mean locking in Rapidity for around three times its current prices, for up to three years. For single-year contracts, the price was as much as four times its current bill.

While Rapidity has a year left on its own contract, Manning was concerned for the printers who would be coming off their electricity contract.

He said: “Every company in the manufacturing print trade should be looking at when their deal comes up to an end and planning for what they're going to do after that.

“Unless something significantly changes in the next year, if your deal is coming up, you are going to be looking at three to four times the prices that you're currently paying.”

Even carbon-neutral printers have felt the squeeze. Zoe Deadman, managing director of Launceston-based KCS Print, changed electricity contract back in August 2021, before the worst of the crisis. 

Even then, she saw KCS’ day rate increase 35% and night rate by 75%. And despite the fact that the firm reduced its electricity usage by 23% between 2020 and 2021, it has felt the impact of yet another increase in overhead costs.

Deadman told Printweek: “We are an industry that relies on heavy capital expenditure and the rising costs are having a major impact on the profitability of the sector.

“All avenues to find efficiency in all forms of waste including energy must be capitalised to maximum effect.”

She added: “As printers, ultimately we have to work efficiently but there comes a point where rising costs must be passed on.”

Managing director of St Austell-based Nationwide Print, Julian Hocking, agreed: “You have to pass it on. You’re not going to sit there and absorb all those costs. There’s no other way around it.”

Speaking to Printweek, he added that customers have been surprisingly accommodating.

He said: “People have been more understanding about jobs being more expensive than they've ever been, because they understand - on this occasion - that it's affecting every industry.”

When clients don’t understand, however, said Charles Jarrold, chief executive of the BPIF, printers may have to take action.

He told Printweek: “There are instances where long-term contracts are in place, reflecting a different cost history - and that’s where things are particularly challenging.

“Detailed reading of contracts and legal advice may be necessary.”

He added, however: “Ultimately, though, we are all in this together. Clients need strong suppliers, and suppliers need supportive clients: there’s a strong rationale to show the common interest in flexibility.”

Manning, however, was concerned that the print industry would suffer - perhaps irreparably - if printers continued passing on their costs.

He said: “It’s not as easy as just passing prices on.”

Print, he said, is in a constant battle with cheaper - often digital - alternatives.

“We’re in a really dangerous area at the moment as a trade. 

“If you do just try to pass it on, all you’re going to do is end up with less work and less demand. It’s a self-defeating cycle.”

According to Perring, however, there may be help on the way for struggling printers.

He said: “We meet once a week with the Department for Business, Energy & Industrial Strategy (BEIS), and we’ve been really strongly putting forward the case to them that not just the printing industry, but all energy-intensive industries desperately need the government to protect manufacturing in this country.”

Earlier in the year, Perring said, support looked unlikely due to the continuing uncertainty over the war in Ukraine.

“But now, there seems a lot more willingness on the part of the Treasury and Home Office to do something.”

While the IPIA has not heard anything concrete, he said, it hopes that the government will provide a subsidy in the next few months.

Printers, however, were less optimistic about what the government could do to help.

Hocking said: “I think it’s irrelevant, because they won’t [do anything]. 

“They didn’t do anything for printing companies during the pandemic: no grants, business rate relief, nothing. Obviously [they provided] furlough, because that was available to everyone.

“I wouldn’t expect anything.”

For Manning, however, the government will have no choice but to act once it has realised the scope of the problem - not just for printers, but for all of UK manufacturing.

He said: “They have to do something, or you’re just going to see mass corporate failures. 

“If they understood, they’d already be doing something.”

He added that many printers are simply unaware of the scale of the problem.

“I went to an industry event the other day, and I reckon half of the people I spoke to had no idea about this. They had no idea there was no price cap on energy prices for the commercial sector.”

If reports that the energy crisis could continue for up to three years were true, he added, it would mean grave consequences for energy-intensive sectors like print.

He said: “If we’ve got three years of this, then we’re just talking about having a lot fewer printers, to be honest.”