SunChem announces significant price rises

Sun Chemical, the world’s largest ink maker, will put up prices again next month due to ongoing raw material shortages and further significant inflationary pressures affecting its costs. The US-headquartered manufacturer said that prices across its portfolio of inks for commercial printing, publication printing and packaging; as well as coatings, pressroom chemicals and adhesives, would go up in EMEA from 1 October.

20 Sep 2021 | By PrintWeek Team

Inks for commercial printing, publication printing and packaging will go up

The increase will vary depending on the product, but Sun Chemical said it would be “significant”.

In a joint statement, Carlo Musso, president of EMEA Packaging Inks and Robert Fitzka, president for Key Accounts and Publication Inks, described the dynamics within the ink market as “unprecedented” and “without signs of stabilisation”.

“Sun Chemical’s primary objective is to keep our customers supplied with the products and services they need, and we have taken necessary steps to secure raw materials and transportation inclusive of absorbing higher costs,” Musso and Fitzka said.

They said that while Sun Chemical was working hard to mitigate rising costs, “the speed of the inflationary pressures necessitates we implement price increases in the market”.  “The percentage of increase will vary from product line to product line due to the different situation of the raw materials, but it is going to be significant due to extraordinary cost escalation of materials, energy, freight, packaging, etc,” they said.

The manufacturer said the well-documented issues with global supplies of crucial raw materials had not shown any signs of stabilisation over the summer, but rather, had continued to demonstrate “further significant inflationary pressures”. “Raw material shortages are an ongoing concern and the competitive environment to secure these scarce resources has accelerated the cost increases within a majority of Sun Chemical’s raw material categories. In addition to raw material cost pressures, logistics and operational costs have soared, including packaging, freight, and utilities, as the economic recovery drives demand for these services,” the USD 7.5-bn turnover group stated.

(Courtesy: Printweek.com)