From:Plastics News

(Linpac Group) Linpac Group announced June 11 that it would increase prices to its customers because of rising raw material costs in the wake of several force majeure declarations in Europe.

European plastics packaging companies have begun announcing that they are raising product prices due to high polymer costs and tight supplies in the wake of a series of force majeure declarations in the region.


Linpac Group, headquartered in Featherstone, England, was the latest company to declare it was raising prices, releasing a statement June 11 that the “recent turbulence in its raw material supply chain and concluded that its rigid and flexible packaging prices will have to increase in the face of current sharp cost increases.”

 “Since March, unprecedented production issues have been reported across the European petrochemical industry, driving tight polymer supply which, when coupled with strengthening demand, has led to sharp price increases for both monomers and polymers,” said Bart Stubbe, director of purchasing in a news release. “We have seen a record series of force majeure declarations from suppliers, a lack of product availability in some cases and soaring polymer prices across Europe.”

Linpac has 18 plants globally.

 “We pride ourselves on delivering reliable, high quality, rigid and flexible packaging solutions for fresh food to leading retailers, packers and distributors around the world,” said CEO Daniel Dayan in the release. “Despite our on-going efforts to improve efficiencies and the performance of our products through innovative design, the difficult cost situation we are facing means price increases have become inevitable.”

In May, Polifilm GmbH in Wermelskirchen, Germany, also blamed force majeure declarations by polymer producers for price rises on its products which it implemented on new orders starting May 1.

Jörg Wingefeld, the division manager for technical films at Polifilm, said: “The force majeure declarations we have received have not only lead to an unprecedented increase of raw material prices but also to a supply bottleneck, which in turn directly affects our customers. Ensuring sufficient supply of raw materials is our outmost priority.”

Polifilm specializes in producing laminate and label films. It has seven manufacturing operations worldwide.

On June 2, Klöckner Pentaplast announced price increases effective June 1 because of the difficulty of obtaining materials in Western Europe.

While the Montabaur, Germany-based company said it had countered with efficiency improvements to reduce cost, it simply could not keep up with rising prices affecting PVC, PET, polystyrene and polyethylene.

“Our efficiency efforts have only partially closed the gaps of the cost increase development,” said Giles Peacock, group senior vice president packaging and specialties, Europe and Asia in a written statement.