“Inky Lou” passed away peacefully on 31 March, aged 86. He is survived by his two children, Matthew and Lisa, and eight grandchildren. Flint Group, whose Akzo Nobel Inks division – now known as ANI Printing Inks – bought his ink manufacturing business in 1998, hailed Werneke for “shaping the narrow web tag and label market and helping to build the industry as it is today”. Werneke foresaw the growing importance the environment would play in the printing industry and, in 1973, he began designing the first water-based ink for flexographic printing, arguing: “There have to be some changes made for the environment and for the energy crunches we have.” He then went on to develop a similar water-based system for label printing and built up his successful global business, which comprised US-based Louis Werneke and the UK’s Label Inks, both of which were sold to Akzo Nobel. Tributes to the “well-respected friend, colleague and industry icon” were given at a prayer mass on Monday (8 April) at Washbury-McReavy in Edina, MN....

The company replaced its Fujifilm Violet Luxel V8 with the Fujifilm Platerite HD8900S last month, which produces plates faster and uses Lo-Chem reduced chemistry. The new thermal system produces can output up to 40 plates an hour. Micropress, which specialises in both litho and digital printing, has also spent around £260,000 on solar panels and energy efficient lighting, which are still in the process of being installed. Sales executive Rob Cross said that the eco-friendly additions to the plant would help the company in its strategy to become more energy efficient while also generating significant cost savings on bills. The printer has also installed a waste extraction system for all bindery machinery in partnership with its waste removal supplier and additional fencing around the site for security purposes. The investments add to the £4.5m spent on relocating from Halesworth to Reydon in Suffolk last November and kitting out the new facility with Heidelberg print and finishing equipment. In the first year at the new site, Micropress has grown its turnover by around 10% to £11m, and is aiming for even higher income in the future as it targets new markets with an upcoming £37,000 web-to-print platform. The website, which is being developed and expected to be ready by the end of the year, will incorporate a bespoke web-to-print service that Cross said will help Micropress to target niche areas of business. “By developing our own system, we can tailor it to our own needs and offerings. Web-to-print is the way the industry is going,” he said....

While the mea culpa stance of its managing director Stuart Mason is admirable, I’m not sure that he’s being entirely fair to himself and his team. I could be wrong, but it doesn’t appear that his plan to reconfigure the business to focus on higher margin rather than commodity work, supported by a brave investment strategy, was the problem. In fact, it was the timing, both in terms of the current climate and also how long it was taking for the benefits to be realised, that was the cause of Ink Shop’s undoing. Mason was a vocal advocate of the need for change in print – perhaps sometimes a little too vocal – but his passion for print generally and his business specifically was admirable. And while it would be easy to surmise that the lesson to be learned from Ink Shop is that change is not always a good thing, I think Mason would probably be the first to say that the worst sort of decision is no decision and we all have to embrace change. It’s just that sometimes you need a little bit of luck and enough time to make even the best-laid plans...

She was famous as the prime minister who broke the stranglehold of hugely-powerful trade unions, including well-known print unions of the era Slade, the NGA, Sogat, and Natsopa. Unite assistant general secretary Tony Burke described the union dispute with Eddy Shah’s Stockport Messenger group in Warrington in 1983 as a “dry run” for what was to follow at News International’s Wapping print plant, and with the mine workers. Shah invoked the new Labour Laws, leading to police action against the striking workforce and subsequent sequestration of union funds. “She saw the opportunity of unleashing the full force of the law against working people. She was vicious and she had a view of what she wanted to do. In doing so, with the miners and printers who were both brilliantly organised, she set about to destroy both,” Burke said. “We’re still here, and she’s not.” Recalling the events of 1983, Burke said: “She used riot police against people, police surveillance and introduced the sort of techniques that are now called kettling. I’d never seen anything like it. But local officers including myself couldn’t get arrested to save our lives,” he added. “It was everything that came to fruition in the miners’ strike a year later.” For others, Thatcher’s legacy is more positive. John Hornby, chief executive of Leeds-based Lettershop Group, said Thatcher brought reality back to business life: “We were able to work together as equal partners with the workforce once the union had been made to realise their responsibilities. It’s all very well being confrontational, but that’s not good business,” he said. “If those sorts of [unionised] conditions existed today, there wouldn’t be a printing industry,” Hornby added. “You either loved her or you hated her, but it was what the country needed at the time.” A notable polarisation of print opinions can be found at Bicester print management company Webmart, set up by founder Simon Biltcliffe on the basis of a combination of Marxist and Capitalist principles. Webmart commercial consultant Ian McCord is a died-in-the-wool Conservative as well as being a local councillor for the party. Biltcliffe said: “Thatcher illegally and immorally used the legal system and full power of the state to break working class unions, while leaving all Tory supporting unions alone, such as the Law Society, British Medical Association et al which are unions in all but name. “She laid waste to Labour supporting areas by clearly targeting traditional industries. 30 years on many of these communities have still not recovered from the instant decimation of their economic heart. She paved the way for the indebted society that we now live in; the disintegration of social cohesion; the ‘greed is good’ culture that we are...

SM Finishing bought the £10,500 Tech-ni-Fold product last week and it is due to be installed at the company’s Nottingham premises on Thursday. The company was looking for something to create a more professional look for its products and was sold on the CreaseStream when works director Tony Palethorpe visited a Technifold Open House on 19 March. Tech-ni-Fold’s CreaseStream Plus is 20,000sph automatic creaser, micro-perforator and cutter that is claimed to eliminate cracking at high speeds. It also enables a precise and consistent workflow by using a pre-cylinder transport roller, ensuring that the fed sheets are accurately transferred to the tooling shafts. Managing director Gary Benner said: “We used to do our creasing through our folding machine but this gets a better result. “We can do personalised one piece glued mailers now, promo work for clients like Gala Bingo and pizza restaurants. We are going to achieve much better results and I’ll be able to put a quality crease in quicker. “Tony came back from the open house saying it was a great bit of kit.” Benner added that he anticipated the new machine to increase the company’s work on higher weight paper. “If people are paying for quality grammages they want a quality crease. We’re always looking for new markets and want to become a one-stop shop,” he said. SM Finishing has been running for nine years and has one site. It has an annual turnover of around £750,000 and 16 members of staff....