Flint Group Commercial, Publication and Sheetfed Inks (CPS) are a leading supplier of web and sheetfed inks to the Global printing industry, manufacturing cold set, heat set and sheetfed inks across its multiple global sites.

Along with many other suppliers, Flint CPS has been faced with cost increases across the entirety of its supply chain. Tony Lord, President of Flint CPS Inks said “2021 has been a challenging year for manufacturers across the commercial and packaging print supply chain, with increased raw material costs influenced by both material and transport availability.

The stark increase in the cost of raw materials for ink manufacturing has already had a dramatic impact on our industry, and there seems to be no end to the ongoing raw material availability crisis.”

During the first half of 2021 Flint CPS worked with its customer base to address the challenging market conditions, and were hopeful that moving towards the end of 2021, some stability would have returned to the market place.

Unfortunately, Flint CPS is yet to see any improvements in the availability of raw materials which, coupled with the strains on global transport and logistics, continues to drive costs upwards.

Lord also stated that “Flint CPS’ operational and procurement teams continue to work tirelessly to mitigate the multiple increases that are being imposed on our business to ensure that our cost base is at its optimum, however, it is certain that as costs continue to increase in such a way, our business will not be able to absorb them in their entirety.”