Small Minnesota town hit with big layoff by Chicago printing company

Pocket Folders Fast, an Omaha, NE-based print service provider, has invested in two J Press 720S presses from FUJIFILM North America Corporation, Graphic Systems Division. Pocket Folders Fast is a division of a broader group of companies, Wright Printing and Barnhart Press. Being a commercial printer allows this group of companies to provide services to a range of clients, including the niche of pocket folders and short-run digital packaging.

Built on a deep understanding of the textile and sublimation industry and experience in digital printing, Sun Chemical’s new ElvaJet Topaz SC sublimation ink delivers easy ink and system management for printers in the sector. The new solution increases the ease of use and on printer experience by enlarging the ink operating window for accurate jetting performance. This enables wider cross system compatibility delivering outstanding reliability and reducing the reliance on waveform. At the same time, it provides increased image quality with optimized jetting performance across all drop sizes, allowing any design to be printed without compromise. With careful focus on the jetting behavior, Sun Chemical has designed ElvaJet Topaz SC to have superior drop control at the different available drop sizes on the full range of Kyocera printheads ensuring that it is easier to use day in, day out.

Tony Lord President of Flint Group Commercial Publication Web Division said, "The first responsibility of a supplier is to meet its obligations to its customers for provision of required volumes to maintain the integrity of the supply chain. To meet this requirement we have been successful in responding to the post pandemic’s unprecedented disruption in both global raw material and energy markets by ensuring both product and energy availability to meet our customers’ demands. This has, however, been at previously unparalleled price levels across our entire portfolio of raw materials and manufacturing locations". Lord further stated "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. To this end, effective for deliveries from March 1st 2022, surcharges to recover these recent cost increases will be applied across our entire publication ink portfolio so that we can maintain supply to our customers".