The manufacturer said that its Kryoset ink series would allow printers to produce “heatset quality products” without the need for the drying process. 

The energy price crisis has hit heatset printers hard, dramatically increasing the costs involved with running the gas ovens on their presses. Rising costs have also hit manufacturers, and last month Flint Group’s Commercial Publication Web (CPW) division introduced a monthly surcharge for web offset printers worldwide due to “hyperinflation” of ink costs.

Tony Lord, president of Flint Group’s Commercial Publication Web and Offset Packaging Solutions divisions, said Kryoset had been in development for a while, and was initially spurred by the sustainability agenda. 

“We have been developing this product for some time initially directed towards the retail market as a response to the desire to reduce the carbon footprint within the heatset print process to sustainably support their valued customer base,” he explained.

“However with the devastating impact of global gas pricing which shows no sign of abating we accelerated the development programme and are now able to provide Kryoset.”

Lord said that results produced using “various popular substrates” had shown the ink set was able to achieve high quality print “with significantly reduced or a totally eliminated drying process thereby significantly enhancing print economics during this volatile inflationary period”. 

Lord added: “The key to this development is the relationship between the ink, fount and substrate but recognising the prevailing shortages with paper supply to the industry we have consciously developed Kryoset with a wide utilisation bandwidth to ensure optimal performance with those substrates that are commercially available today.”

Flint said it would prioritise supplying existing customers before releasing the new ink to the wider market.