It's no surprise that printers have had to brace themselves for price rises in the flexo and gravure inks sector. The market is suffering from a lack of replacement capacity, high raw material prices and the economic downturn.
"Gum rosin and its derivatives are key raw materials for publication gravure inks, so the current high pricing has a significant effect on our product cost," explains Mathias Schuetz, Flint Group's director of product management for publication gravure inks. "We have no economic alternatives either, since the only replacement raw materials we might consider are oil based, which are much more expensive and also rising in cost."
As a result, Flint increased the European price of its publication gravure inks last month by €0.30 per kg.
Flat-lining
Van Son Inks UK technical sales consultant Ian Firman concurs that the market has been flat in 2010, but as a small independent manufacturer, he says Van Son is not in a position to pass on price rises.
"It had held up a little bit better than the offset market at the start, but then it flattened out," he adds. "We are all in a position where we are buying off world markets. Pigment prices are a big issue, as are rosins. It all depends whether you can get away with passing it on to end-users. The paper market seems to be able to do that quite well, but when it comes to ink suppliers, customers are quite resistant to absorb these prices."
Renowned for its quality, gravure remains unsurpassed when used for long runs at high speeds. The depth of ink and sharp dots can create the effect of continuous tone and the inks are a lot less viscous than offset inks. The gravure process requires liquid ink that fills the cells of the printing cylinders at a high speed.
Flexo inks are fairly similar to gravure, but the viscosity is a crucial factor in ensuring that you get the best quality. There are a high number of pigments in flexo inks meaning they can be used for a wider range of applications.
Improvements in flexo technology and market demand for shorter runs have meant that the demand for these inks has increased. Much of flexo's success is on narrower presses that specialise in labels and flexible packaging.
Water-based flexo, already dominant in paper-based printing, is slowly taking over from its solvent-based cousin across the board. New developments are now focussed on developing water-based equivalents for gravure printing in paper packaging markets.
WHAT'S NEW IN FLEXO AND GRAVURE INKS
· In May, Flint Group announced a €0.30/kg price increase for publication gravure inks in Europe. The group blamed rising pigment and rosin prices, as well as the massive de-stocking of supply chains due to the global economic downturn
· In March, Sun Chemical opened its new, state-of-the-art manufacturing plant in Frankfurt, Germany, dedicated to the global food packaging printing market. The plant was built using clean room and HACCP directives to ensure that the best possible standards were adopted in the manufacture of
Sun’s inks
· At the end of 2009, Van Son Inks began manufacturing a new range of gravure inks called Aquabase Plus Gravure and has ceased all solvent-based ink manufacturing to become a purely water-based ink producer
