Flint Group CPW division president Tony Lord said the company had maintained the integrity of its supply chain throughout the recent disruption in both global raw material and energy markets by ensuring both product and energy availability to meet its customers’ demands.

“This has, however, been at previously unparalleled price levels across our entire portfolio of raw materials and manufacturing locations,” he said.

“Regrettably the hoped for stabilisation in both raw material availability and pricing has failed to materialise so far in 2022 with products remaining scarce and their pricing continuing to escalate accordingly.

“This, coupled with the exponential increase in energy tariffs, has created a situation where current selling price levels for our products are simply not sustainable. To respond to this sudden rise in costs we feel the sensible approach is to avoid a general price increase and apply a monthly surcharge whilst awaiting further market developments.”

He added the surcharge “will be applied across our entire publication ink portfolio so that we can maintain supply to our customers”.

“It is of course a matter of deep regret this surcharge is needed and we understand the difficult printing markets that currently prevail and can assure all of our valued customers that as the situation normalises, we will seek to reflect this development by reducing or eliminating the surcharge applied.”

Last week Flint Group Packaging also said it will increase the prices of all the packaging products sold by its Flexible Packaging, Paper and Board, and Narrow Web business units.