Supply Chain Issues

We cannot currently offer much positive news regarding our supply issues. The Finnish Paper Mill Workers strike has compounded a supply chain that was already suffering issues and under pressure from unprecedented demand, much of this driven as the UK and other Countries see industry bounce back following the Covid 19 Pandemic.

Pricing / Costs
Over recent Years, although raw material prices have risen, we, through investment, better purchasing arrangements, introducing alternative work patterns and, thanks to the staff and management being able to be more flexible, offset general price increases to you. 
However, on top of recent increases, we are again needing to looking at prices, and so again ask / remind you to please check prices before ordering.
Since Summer 2021 we have seen price increases of in excess of 40% in our raw materials, some materials in excess of 50%, from the 1st March we are seeing further increases in the region of 11%. On top of this, energy, transport etc is increasing. We understand that this is not the news you would want.

Our prices, in the main over previous Years have been stable, as we currently work through quotes and re-quote, we are seeing that our prices for many jobs have remained unchanged for some time, up to in 10 years in some cases, but the current trend in increase seems set to continue, following reviews in November and December 2021, January and February 2022 we now find ourselves needing to review again.

We have been advised by suppliers that they are reserving the right to amend (increase) prices even after we have placed our raw material order, in practice we have not ourselves had this happen, yet, but it is possible that we may need to advise of price increases to jobs already placed. We will do all we can to avoid this situation.

Order Confirmation / Flexibility 
We do try, under normal circumstance, to issue our order confirmations within 24 hours of receiving your order, this possible as we in turn would receive a prompt order confirmation for the raw material or be able to use our stock. Currently suppliers are taking up to 7 days to confirm our orders, the result meaning we in turn are unable to confirm you order as promptly as we would like. To add to the issues here, we are seeing dates moving, both improving, but more commonly, being extended, making the job of confirmation very difficult. (as one competitor described it "impossible")

It was the case, until December, that around half of our 400,000+ sq mts of raw material would be free from allocation and so available for any suitable job. This would allow us to fit in urgent jobs more easily, amend the production programme to suit more efficient running, and stay close to the delivery dates you requested.
As the uncertainty of supply hits harder, and our stock reduces, it is the case that nearly all of our paper is now allocated against a job, meaning that our ability to be able to help with urgent requests, fitting in that urgent job, even the smallest, has now evaporated, our flexibility currently reduced.

Raw Material / Delivery       
While we do still have paper stocks and also have delivery of material arriving regularly, the volume is decreasing and delivery times worsening, from 2 weeks to 3 weeks and further. While we have been and still do remain positive, we do see that the next weeks could see some harder challenges. We may be forced to restrict orders, ie if you order 300,000 labels, we may only be able to supply 150,000, 100,000, we are already seeing restrictions with our raw material orders. This does not help in the long term, jobs needing to be run multiple times adding to our work load. It would be the case that we would need to pass carriage on in these circumstance.

The strike shows no sign of ending, but despite all of the above, demand is still unprecedented, we are not alone in currently holding our largest ever order book, but we can see that the coming weeks may need us to work together to allow some supply to all of you.   

We will continue to keep you advised as best as we are able and again, should your colleagues need sight of this, please do share,

Simon