Supply Chain Issues on Paper Products continue to hamper Printing

One increasing area of concern for everyone in the commercial printing industry is the impact on global and domestic supply chains leading to shortages of paper and print materials critical to printing.

Equipment manufacturing, ink and chemicals, paper, and textiles have all been adversely affected and are now much more costly to buy and source. Exacerbating the supply issues has been a spike in the demand for printed products, normally a good thing, but now creating supply shortages and unprecedented price increases.

There is no one fix to this complex set of issues. Even as the pandemic morphs into a less severe point, the Printing United Alliance believes there will continue to be serious supply chain issues for commercial printing paper for quite some time. A return to normal, if possible, may well be measured in years rather than months.

Now the new news of war in Ukraine is throwing gasoline (no pun intended) on a fire that had already been started by the Covid 19 pandemic for the graphic arts industry.

There Is A Real Shortage Of Envelopes, Paper Bags, Office Paper, And Other Paper Products Both Coated and Uncoated

This paper shortage has affected more than just the printing and book industry. The challenges in the paper supply chain have led to shortages in envelopes, paper bags, boxes for package deliveries, toilet paper, and more for consumers as well.

The supply chain for the basic raw materials for print (mostly paper) continues to get worse. There is now a shortage of paper to go along with several very large price increases we have witnessed in the past eighteen months or so.

We have seen paper price increases during this pandemic from 10 to 50%! Keeping print and related projects as cost-competitive as possible becomes mission #1.

“We are on purchase allocation from every paper mill and converting manufacturer we do business with, which means that we cannot buy more than we have been using in the past from them. This makes it very difficult to have enough paper to grow our business”, says John Orlando, Vice President of Sales & Marketing at Hatteras, Inc.

Make No Mistake About It, There Is A Real Raw Product Shortage Facing Everyone That Prints Commercially!

Supply Chain issues are getting worse and having quite an impact on our ability to service our customers.

Drastic times call for drastic change.

“At Hatteras, Inc. we have literally had to work on buying paper and other key production materials for months in advance and we will continue to do so,” says John Orlando, Vice President of Sales & Marketing for Hatteras, Inc. “These are difficult times. We have seen spikes in demand cause short-term shortages, to produce what we could buy in the past in a product grade line or two, but never across the entire board like this. As a veteran of over 40 years of being in the Paper supply business, I can tell you with confidence that this is unprecedented, as we have never seen this type of difficult marketplace to get fine paper and raw product materials to print on.

“There simply have not been the raw paper products available for us to purchase. From Port issues on import paper products to domestic mills shutting down supply in a digital world our costs have risen sharply and we also have to struggle to find the right product for our clients to print, but we do find a way to help them,” Orlando says.

At Hatteras, we have a partnership with our key vendors and we are always looking for new vendor supplier niches for our customers. Paper continues to have a direct impact on our ability to produce the new products we create on a regular basis for our customers.

Possession Is Nine Tenths Of The Law. We Are Stocking Up To Meet Customer Demands.

In this type of situation, we find ourselves on the commercial printing front, it is all hands on deck. Our equipment can put ink on just about any substrate so we can find you something to print on. Our team will help you get it produced.

We have offered help to our clients to plan ahead, as best as they can.

To meet demand, we also have added some key regional and national mills and paper and envelope suppliers to source materials from. We are overloading our work area with paper and other key print resources.

Please let us know if we can help you source the printed products that you need.

About Hatteras Inc.

Hatteras, Inc. is a full-service design, data, apparel, print, and mail company headquartered in Plymouth, Michigan. Hatteras services major corporate partners in a broad cross-section of industries from automotive to healthcare to direct marketing to the public sector. Hatteras specializes in high-quality offset, digital, screen, and large format printing. For more information, visit www.4hatteras.com, call 313.624.3300 or email cservice@4hatteras.com.