Inflation reached 9% in April due to soaring energy prices and the impact of the Ukrainian war on fuel and food prices. At the same time, many printers find their costs rising faster.

In the recent public opinion survey of foreign industry media, more than 300 people responded to the speed of cost increase of printers, and nearly one third (32%) said that their costs had increased by more than 20% in the past 12 months.

Nearly 70% of the respondents (68%) said that this ratio exceeded 10%.

Since October 2021, the paper cost of Solent design, a Southampton based printer, has increased by 35-45%, and will increase again on May 30. Martin Reynolds, general manager of the company, said: “this is a challenge for everyone.”

“We have to buy paper in advance and store paper for our major customers so that we can keep the paper price semi stable for at least oneortwo months. The actual growth is absolutely incredible.”

It’s not just paper. In the past six months, Solent’s fuel surcharge has increased from 6% to 14%. Recently, when the company had to renegotiate the contract, its electricity and gas bills doubled. “Enterprises are being hit from all sides,” he said.

Despite the price increase, he found that the customer had understood this. Because the price rise has affected everyone in Britain, not just the printing industry. Although this is painful, everyone knows that the rise in prices is due to various economic reasons.

However, Charles jarrold, CEO of BPIF, the British Printing Industry Federation, said that enterprises inevitably have to pass on costs.

In an interview with the media, He said: “As soon as the members of the association are informed of the price increase and communicate about it, there will be a new round of price increase, which is really difficult. We need to work more closely in the whole supply chain to have a deeper understanding of what is going on, so that printers can talk to their customer base in a more organized way. We need to work closely with these customers to ensure that we have the best understanding of their upcoming requirements.”

Paul Manning, managing director of rapidity based in London, said that although he was worried that this would have a long-term impact on the business, he had to start shifting costs.

He said that he was also worried that this would lead to a decline in demand, because when people have been working at home for two years and the demand for printed materials is low, your attempt to pass on higher costs will inevitably lead to this result.

Manning said that the industry needs the support of the government, which can be in the form of industry electricity price cap, and needs mutual support. Because if you tell a printing company that they have to pay four times their electricity bills this year, it will undoubtedly bankrupt them.

He said that another solution, especially for small and medium-sized enterprises, is to jointly reduce supply prices. As a transaction, we will have to consider collective purchase of paper and other items. This is what they have been doing on the African continent for many years.

However, Brendan Perring, general manager of ipia of the independent printing industry alliance, said that it would not be supported in the short term.

He said: “as far as we know, although the UK is developing business support plans to try to reduce some inflation and logistics pressure, these plans will not be put into use in this quarter. The Ministry of finance must ensure that there are funds to deal with the situation in Ukraine.”

He added: “there is no other way to go, and enterprises are under great pressure. We will continue to see enterprise closures, mergers and layoffs. Yorkmailing is a typical example.”