December 21, 2006
Fire shuts down press at PrintWest Communications
SASKATOON—Fire crews responded to a 911 call on Tuesday morning, arriving to find the roof of PrintWest's web press facility ablaze. The fire, believed to have started near an ink-drying oven, shut the plant down for a number of hours, though according to company president Grant Gayton, the 6 p.m. shift was able to begin on time. While the roof and environmental control system sustained most of the damage, the shop has lost the use of its 6-colour Nebiolo heat-set press. At the time of the fire, the Nebiolo was running inserts for the Western Producer, an agricultural newspaper the company prints and owns. Gayton says he expects the press to be back up and running within the next 10 days, but approximately $250,000 in business will have to be outsourced during the down time. 

Christmas by mail
You send them, receive them, and some of you may even print them—the Christmas card is a fixture of the holiday season. The first commercially produced card was made on thick, 5¹/₈” by 3¹/₄" cardboard stock using lithography and hand-colouring. English painter John Collcott Horsley designed it in 1843 by commission for his friend Sir Henry Cole. It depicted a family drinking wine together above the words, “A merry Christmas and a happy New Year to you.” One thousand copies were made by Jobbins of Warick Court, and sold for one shilling apiece. A reprint was issued in 1955, but some of the original 1843 run are believed to have survived in private collections. 

New Gear—RJ Multi Litho lands an 8-colour press
Warner Ten Kate, president of Accell Graphics, has purchased a Komori Lithrone S29 8-colour press with perfector and tower coater for his London, Ont., shop. He is seen above between Steve Ranson, vice president of sales for K-North Komori (left) and company president Yoshiharu Komori. 

Happy Holidays! Be sure to check back with PrintCAN.com in January for all the latest industry news from across Canada.

December 19, 2006
Trade Watch—The October Boom
OTTAWA—Industry Canada has released the latest statistics for printing imports and exports, tracking to the end of October 2006.

EXPORTS	2006	2005	Change
October	$145.6 million	$147.0 million	-0.9%
Year to date	$1.3 billion	$1.4 billion	-9.5%

October is historically a busy time for Canadian printers that ship to the U.S. This year was no different—October exports to that country hit a two-year high of more than $127 million.

IMPORTS	2006	2005	Change
October	$139.2 million	$121.9 million	14.1%
Year to date	$1.1 billion	$1.0 billion	10.1%

American printers received more than $105 million of Canadian business in October—another two-year high. China also continued to make its presence felt, slipping slightly below September levels to $20.2 million.

Production Values—October up, 2006 down
OTTAWA—Though it was a step up from September, Statistics Canada’s October 2006 figures show less Canadian print business being bought domestically than in 2005. October’s printing shipments totaled $898 million nationwide, a 10.8% decline from October 2005. Year-to-date figures reached $8.6 billion at that point, down 2.8% from $8.9 billion last year.

December 14, 2006
A new look for Print Three
TORONTO—Steven Bolduc’s Print Three location in the Royal Bank Plaza in Toronto is the first to get a “smart” makeover. The company is remodeling its storefronts with designs inspired by its new marketing position—“Smart Document Centres, The intelligent way to do business.” Bolduc’s shop was used to unveil the new look. All new Print Three locations will use the new layout, and many existing locations have changeover plans in place.

Stora Enso indicted for price fixing
HARTFORD, Conn.—An American grand jury has indicted paper manufacturer Stora Enso on a charge of price fixing. The company’s American division is accused of meeting with an undisclosed competitor and agreeing to fix prices on coated magazine paper between August 2002 and June 2003. In a statement released today, Stora Enso denied any wrongdoing and said it plans to enter a plea of not guilty when the case goes to trial. The charges stem from an investigation stretching back to 2004 when joint U.S. and European Union authorities raided company offices in Helsinki, Finland.

December 12, 2006
New biz for Transcontinental and Hudson’s Bay Co.
MONTREAL—Transcontinental has gathered $75 million in new business on the back of a new 5-year exclusive printing deal with HBC’s Zellers, Home Outfitters and The Bay retail chains. Effective February 1, 2007, the contract totals $350 million and covers flyer and catalogue printing, as well as marketing and distribution services. Transcontinental has a 30-year relationship with Zellers, which is the company’s oldest flyer-printing client.

Heritage print shop reborn as lofts
TORONTO—The former site of Rolph Clark Stone, an early-twentieth century two-storey lithography facility, is getting new life as a loft and townhouse development called The Printing Factory. Located in Toronto’s former industrial district, Leslieville, the plant was originally opened in 1917. It housed British-born engraver Joseph Thomas Rolph and his partners T.J. Clark and David Smith after The Great Toronto Fire of 1904, which destroyed Rolph’s first Toronto shop. The new lofts will integrate the century-old litho facility into a modern townhouse and low-rise condo complex that maintains the building’s original street-level façade.

December 7, 2006
New colour presses for Amazon on-demand books
SEATTLE, Wash.—Online shopping giant Amazon.com has upped its investment in its on-demand book operations. With the installation of HP Indigo presses and Indigo Production Manager front-end controllers at a number of its North American facilities, Amazon has brought full-colour book production in-house. The company has been producing black-and-white books on-demand since 2005, the year it made more than US$3 billion in book sales. According to an HP press release, the on-demand book market is set to grow to 38 billion pages by 2009, up from 20 billion pages in 2006, which it attributes to the increasing demand for self-published and short-run books.

Ink prices to rise in 2007
NORTHLAKE, Ill. and STUTTGART, Germany—Packaging printers appear to be most affected by a series of upcoming ink price increases. Both Sun Chemical and Flink Ink, the major players in the ink market, have announced price increases effective January 1, 2007. Sun Chemical revealed in early December a 4% to 6% price hike on its North American-sold packaging, commercial and screen inks. The announcement arrived a day after Flink Ink revealed it was upping the cost of its flexo and gravure packaging inks. Ever-rising material cost was cited in both cases as cause for the hikes.

December 5, 2006
Unisource honours printers, designers
TORONTO—Seventeen print shops were rewarded for their excellent work in producing annual reports and corporate brochures during National Unisource Annual Report Show (NUARS) last week. A panel of five design-industry judges gave awards to honour “excellence in Canadian design and printing” in the corporate arena. Winners included Annan & Sons in Toronto, Anstey Book Binding in Toronto, BL Litho in Laval, Que., Blanchette Press in Richmond, B.C., Bowne Financial Print in Toronto, C.J. Graphics in Toronto, Flash Reproductions in Toronto, grafikom MIL in Don Mills, Ont., Hemlock Printers in Burnaby, B.C., K2 Impression in Vanier, Que,, The Lowe-Martin Group in Ottawa, Les Reliures Caron & Létourneau in Laval, Que., Rita in Montreal, Somerset Graphics in Mississauga, Ont., Teldon Print Media in Richmond, B.C., Transcontinental Litho Acme in Montreal, and Transcontinental O’Keefe in Mississauga.

PRINT WORLD SPECIAL REPORT: Printers' marketplace
TORONTO—It’s been two weeks since Print World 2006 closed its doors, and the dust is starting to settle. The show was one of the biggest ever, with more than 10,000 attendees strolling the aisles, many with chequebooks at the ready to invest in new equipment. Judging from the number of “sold” signs hanging from press equipment, there was a lot of business conducted. Though PrintCAN has been told some companies are too busy installing new equipment to give us all the details, here are some of the sales we’ve heard about so far:

• Somerset Graphics in Mississauga, Ont. came away from the show having bought a Rapida 105 41” 6-colour-plus coater from KBA (KBA also announced the sale of a 40” 6-colour press to Mississauga’s Seydaco Packaging at the show)
• Graphic Services, a Guelph, Ont., shop, bought a new Dart 4300E CTP device with a Rampage workflow from Fujifilm
• Signet Graphics in Woodbridge, Ont, also bought a Dart 4300E with Rampage
• Pearson Printing, another Woodbridge shop, also bought the Dart 4300E with the TrueFlow 3 workflow system
• Apex Creation from Scarborough, Ont., purchased a Printmaster QM 46 press from Heidelberg
• Advocate Printing in Pictou, N.S., flew home with a bill of sale for a D&K laminator from Spicers
• Coyle Packaging Group in Peterborough, Ont., bought a ColorSpan 9840 UV printer from Access Imaging
• The Hub in St. John, N.S., walked away with a Ryobi 3302M from PDS Pressdown
• Halton Commercial Printing in Georgetown, Ont., also purchased a 3302M
• Calgary’s Kwik Kopy picked up a PFP 330 air folder and an Astro envelope feeder.

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