According to Carr the division was primarily focussed on testing new products for internal quality control purposes, rather than a customer support function. He added that it made sense for the company, which last month rebranded its merchanting divisions as Paperlinx, to focus on investing in services that add customer value, such as the recently launched 'printers' webstores', rather those that just add costs.

"Originally it was a service that Robert Horne had for a long time for when different grades and qualities of papers could be dramatically different, with different characteristics from each mill. Quality and consistency has moved on dramatically in recent years and the mills have their own technical capability themselves now," said Carr.

He added that customer's technical questions would continue to be fielded by technical sales staff and, when needed, the mills themselves.

A consultation with the technical services department was launched in early May, with the decision to close the department finalised on 10 June. Six positions were made redundant as a result of the closure.

"I appreciate it's disappointing for the staff affected, especially those that have been with us for a long time, but the world is changing and the quality and consistency of the paper we sell has improved beyond all recognition in the past 20 years," said Carr.

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The press has been configured with beta.c 220 temperature control and a beta.f dampening filtration unit from Technotrans.

According to Paul Sadler, operations director at the ISO 14001 certified company, one of the critical elements to running alcohol free is ensuring that chemicals are clean and ink tack exactly right.

"Good chemistry is critical to running without alcohol and it needs to be controlled well which it is with the beta.f. The filter life it good too."

"We like using technotrans because their products are good and their service and support is reliable. We are very pleased to have completed the circle in our move to having an alcohol-free pressroom.".

"Latin America and Asia Pacific will now become very important markets for us going forward."

It covers CTP plates and ink for St Ives' high-speed inkjet presses.

Book wing Clays in East Anglia is the biggest single user of Kodak technology within the group, as it runs two digital book production lines using Kodak inkjet technology alongside its substantial conventional print production facilities.

The agreement also covers retail print specialist SP's sites in Redditch and Burnley, and the St Ives Direct operation in Bradford.

St Ives group commercial director Ivor Watters said the new contract had followed a thorough review of potential alternative suppliers:

"If we find a good supplier we tend to stick with them, but that's not to say we wouldn't move - we benchmark commercially," he explained.

"We've found Kodak to be very pro-active and very helpful, and we've been pleased with the consistency and quality of supply.

"They've also provided value-for money by helping us to strip out unnecessary costs year-on-year," Watters added.

He said St Ives had been kept informed about Kodak's Chapter 11 process, and was "comfortable" about the situation and the likely future shape of the supplier.

The production workflow systems at Clays and SP have also been updated with bespoke configurations to marry with each site's precise needs, using a combination of Kodak's Prinergy workflow, Insite Prepress Portal and Prinergy Rules-Based Automation software.

Kodak UK and Nordic sales director Darren Chard said he was delighted with the deal, and highlighted the value of the "tremendous synergy" gained through long-term customer partnerships.

"The relationship that we have today has been built over several years to become more than just a day-to-day business relationship," he said.

" A strong sense of purpose with a focus on attaining mutual success in a dynamic and ever-changing market environment has created tremendous synergy between our two businesses."

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The inks can be used for printing on both fired tiles and a range of unfired glazes.

The range's USP is a colour strength and density previously hard to reach on single pass digital printers, said Xennia.

"Zircon white, pink and beige show strong colour vibrancy and high opacity. The inks offer a high level of colour stability across a wide range of glazes, eliminating colour differences between wall and floor tiles," said Olivier Morel, Xennia's chief technology officer.

"The wider gamut achieved when using Zircon colours allows the designer to reveal the finer details in the highlight and shadow areas that are embedded in marble, stone, wood pattern effects which has previously not been visible," added Morel.

The Xeninx Zircon range are priced between £10-£40 per kilo depending on volume and colour.

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Both increases join a raft of price hikes from other paper manufacturers. Metsa Board also increased its prices for wood-free coated papers in April.

Meanwhile Sappi Fine Paper Europe announced price increases for its graphic paper and coated fine paper range in February, and last month announced a 6% increase to specialty paper product prices, to come into effect from 1 July this year.

The consensus when many of these rises were announced back in February, was that merchants would have no choice but to pass the full impact of these increases on to customers.

Arjowiggins Graphic said that sales contacts would be in touch with customers shortly to "discuss further details and prepare implementation accordingly."

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The firm has agreed an exclusive deal with Shackell Edwards, part of the Druckfarben group, for its use in coatings for the printing industry.

BioSeal is a biocide that involves micro-particles in a resin. The particles are harmless and dormant until touched, at which point they kill harmful bacteria including MRSA and E. coli.

Potential applications include healthcare items such as patient records, printed products for schools and GP surgeries, as well as notoriously germ-laden items such as banknotes.

Chemical Intelligence chief executive Rob Gros said the method means bacteria cannot build resistance, with tests showing that BioSeal reduces harmful bacteria on surfaces by up to 99.999%.

The firm has a patent pending on the technology, which it said remains effective for the lifetime of the product.

"It's a novel and clever technology that has allowed us to reach this level of efficiency, and not at high cost," Gros said. "I haven't seen another product anywhere that can get close to this."

Shackell Edwards has formulated a range of BioSeal coatings for print at its factory in Corby, including oil-based, water-based and UV coatings.

"It's helping printers add value to print," said Grant Penfield, group managing director at parent Druckfarben, who said BioSeal was more effective and less expensive than existing silver-based antimicrobial coatings.

He hopes this affordability and ease-of-use will lead to wide-scale adoption. "Printers' customers will benefit from a safe-to-touch antimicrobial surface at minimal extra cost. The additional cost in the coating is about 10%-15%, so it doesn't add up to much in the overall cost of a printed job," he said.

Users can add a special BioSeal brandmark to printed products that have been coated to indicate when a product carries the protection.

BioSeal has been field-tested by a range of printers using a variety of sheetfed and web presses, and with inline and offline coating units.

"The coatings work normally on-press, and don't change the appearance of the print or cause yellowing," Penfield added.

For more information visit www.bioseal.co.uk or www.shackell-edwards.co.uk.

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IP UK and Ireland country manager Mike Robertson said: "Having the Ecolabel flower logo on the HP Everyday Papers range allows us to demonstrate how seriously International Paper takes our commitment to the environment."

The HP Everyday Papers range is manufactured from virgin fibres and includes grades for all kinds of office applications. It is available from leading UK distributors.

HP Everyday Papers are designed to complement HP office printing kit and are optimised for HP's inks and toners.

The Everyday Papers range has also been certified by the PEFC and FSC schemes.

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This involves Enviro Image Solutions analysing unique physical damage on each press blanket in a bid to identify issues that reduce its life and production efficiency.

It then makes "pressroom specific" recommendations to prevent the damage from recurring, allowing the blankets to be reused.

Steve Johns, continuous improvement coordinator at Chesapeake Leicester, said: "We found each rejuvenated blanket can be renewed around 5 times. We aim to reduce blanket costs and general waste going to landfill."

Earlier this year Chesapeake had the world's longest B1 Heidelberg press, comprising 17 units and an inline cold foiling option, installed at its East Kilbride facility.

The XL 106 perfector arrived at the Scottish plant at the end of last year and has taken over three months to commission.

The 17 units include 10 printing towers, three coaters and four drying units. The coating towers are installed both before and after the printing and perfecting section to enable Chesapeake to apply matt, gloss and pearlescent finishes both inside and outside packaging.

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Fire is the latest in the Ultra Board range of display panels, which the company said are sustainably manufactured and ideal for retail, internal signage and exhibition stand applications, and is "100% fire-retardant". Like the rest of the Ultra Board range, the new product uses a honeycomb structure for a strong yet light material.

The company said that Fire is ideal for applications that require an eco-friendly, fire-rated alternative to PVC, adding that it was well-suited to a range of uses including POS, exhibition and retail displays and stand-alone signs in fire safety locations.

The surface facing is also appropriate for digital and screen printing as the product has been developed to have a whiter surface designed specifically to take coloured ink.

Marketing manager Alex Brownhill said: "Ultra Board Fire gives our customers great quality print with that extra reassurance of a fire-rated product, and also as it is 100% recyclable."

"Printers have deep relationships with their customers so we're just trying to make that relationship stickier. What we're doing is providing an income stream that printers would not have had access to before, importantly, without tying up their cash. It really is that simple," he added.

The service is known internally as "printers' webstores" and the first webstore is expected to go live in the coming days, although Carr declined to reveal the name of the first user. PaperlinX is currently also in advanced discussions with another six customers.

In essence the service is a white label online storefront that printers can add to their websites. The storefronts will offer around 500 Paperlinx products, ranging from blank packaging, office paper, consumables and other media.

"Everyone we've spoken to sees the value in it, because we're all experiencing a decline in volumes. It's a low cost, no risk opportunity and people get that," said Carr.

"It stems from us trying to develop initiatives to enable our customers to bolt on new revenue streams. Of course if it's good for their business, it's also good for us because it continues our evolution from simply being a supplier of paper," added Carr.

The webstores will be branded in line with the printer's own branding. They will be full e-commerce enabled sites where customers can pay by credit card, although invoice options will also be available.

Once placed, the orders will be delivered direct to the printer's customers via Paperlinx's 250-strong logistics fleet, based across DeliveryCo's 24 distribution hubs.

The products will be supplied at a fixed price, to ensure a common pricing structure, which will be set by Paperlinx across all printers' webstores. Printers will then generate a pre-determined "healthy" commission based on order value, which will then be either paid directly to the printer or credited to their Paperlinx account.

"It's a simple value added service for the printer to their customers, it plays into our strengths of logistics and breadth of products. We as merchants should be helping our customers to offer solutions to their customers and this does exactly that, it really is a win-win for all concerned," said Carr.

The pilot "printers' webstores" service will initially be offered to 50 pre-selected Paperlinx customers, but Carr said over time it would be opened up. In terms of initial set up costs to the printer, Carr described them as "minimal", but he added that they would depend on a variety of factors, such as volumes.

While the service will initial focus on 500 products, Carr said that more products will be added over time - once the demand has been identified.

The scheme is being launched in the UK, but Paperlinx expects to roll it out across Europe by the end of the year.

Carr hinted that Paperlinx might introduce other similar initiatives in the near future, however he declined to reveal further details.

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It is designed to be simple to slot together, disassemble and dispose of and is claimed to be 100% recyclable.

The product complements Oriam Green's other, more robust signage and stand board Reboard, by offering a cheaper alternative, said Oriam director Craig MacWilliam.

"This will be ideal for the printer with a digital flatbed printer and cutting machine that wants to go green but in a very cost-effective way," he said.

"Previous honeycomb boards might not have been strong enough and don't react well to going under lamps in the digital process, but this does."

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Joint partner Roy Killen said one of the creative highlights of the 108-page magazine with six-page cover was the "coptic" binding, with exposed thread stitching down the spine. The magazine measures 255mm x 210mm.

Article, billed as a magazine that "celebrates Britain with the coolest of papers", covers art, design, culture and contemporary men's fashion and was printed with the support of Arctic Paper UK.

The launch issue includes a selection from the paper supplier's range including Arctic Matt, Arctic Silk, Arctic Volume White and Munken Lynx Rough. The latter was chosen for its "tactile appeal; not too bulky or shiny, yet offering unique colour reproduction," said the magazine's art director Rosy Tsai.

Arctic Paper managing director Garry Colyer, said: "This unique magazine is inspirational in terms of design and its choice of papers. All standard Arctic Papers are FSC certified so it has great environmental credentials too."

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