Connections
Trade Printers Holding Steady in Economy
Despite all of the doomsday reporting about our economy on the nightly news, some small business sectors are still doing well. Take, for example, trade printing. The trade printing industry is actually still growing (albeit slowly) as more printers and brokers start to outsource their printing.
On A Printing Office: A Blog for Small and Medium Printers, they sum up the phenomenon nicely along with a reference to the original research published in Print Solutions magazine. What’s interesting to note, and the blog entry mentions it too, is that 70% of the top 144 trade printing companies employed less than 100 people!
So, yes, small printers and small business can survive in what the media’s calling a cutthroat economy. In fact, small printers are usually better able to cut costs, be flexible, move quickly and weather the storm (provided they have the resources to get them through it).
But why trade printing specifically? I think it comes down to cash flow and equipment acquisition. A small, local printer may not have the reserves on hand to invest in a new piece of equipment or a down payment on a new lease, but that doesn’t mean he’s not going to offer those services. Instead, he’ll broker a relationship with a trade printer. Because for some small businesses, it doesn’t make sense to have all that equipment on hand if you’re only running those kinds of jobs a few times a year. So, the demand for trade printing goes up.
After being inundated with end-of-the-world reporting about our supposedly collapsing economy, it’s nice to read some good news for once. Yes, small business can succeed. Yes, it can grow and yes, it can be innovative. So, kudos to Print Solutions and Printing Office for reminding us.
5 Tree-Free Papers
The Sustainable Printing blog hosted on Today.com recently posted a great piece covering the five most popular, tree-free green printing papers available today.
Not all of them are widely available or cost-effective, but a few are catching on in the green printing industry as viable alternatives to traditional tree-fiber.
Hemp Paper
It grows fast, has incredibly high yields and it’s durable — making hemp an incredibly versatile material. For most commercial applications, hemp is combined (usually in a 1:3 ratio) with recycled tree-derived paper stock.
Unfortunately, this process of recycling, washing and bleaching recycled stock and then combining it with hemp fiber uses a lot of water, electricity and resources. If your goal is sustainable printing, I recommend investigating both how this particular paper was manufactured and the size of the manufcaturer’s ecological footprint.
Cotton Paper
Cotton paper is bright, white and beautiful to work with. It feels amazing between your fingertips and it actually lasts much longer than traditional tree paper. However, cotton paper is also exceptionally expensive.
There’s also the sustainable printing argument that growing that much cotton to sustain a paper industry would require an epic amount of farmland and more resources (watering, maintaining, processing) than tree-derived papers. So, while cotton may be green paper in small amounts, it doesn’t scale well into mass production.
Kenaf Paper
Like hemp, kenaf grows quickly and produces a high yield. And because kenaf is naturally white, it requires significantly less bleaching than paper made from tree fibers. Today, kenaf is poised to be the next big green paper in the sustainable printing industry.
Bamboo Paper
I’ve heard of bamboo socks, but did you know they also make bamboo paper? Though not widely available, bamboo paper is being developed and marketed as a green paper. It’s expensive, but if it catches on, the price could come down.
Rock Paper
No, not Rock Paper Scissors. Rock paper is essentially made from limestone and will eventually break down over time, particularly when exposed to the elements. There’s no bleaching involved, but don’t expect long term durability with this green paper choice.
Photo: Joi (bamboo)
Photo: Ingermaaike2 (hemp yarn)
Four Alternatives to Layoffs in Your Print Shop
I try to stay optimistic about the economy, seeking out the positive stories like new businesses and growth opportunities, but sometimes the reality is that, yes, small businesses can be hit hard.
Small printers may be looking around their print shop and wondering how they’re going to afford things like lease payments and payroll with ever-dwindling cash reserves. The easy answer might be layoffs, but there are alternatives. If all you need to stay in the black is a little extra cash flow, full scale layoffs may not only be extreme, they could end up pushing you further down. If you can, consider one of the following:
Eliminate Overtime
If you can’t afford to pay someone’s regular salary, what makes you think you can afford to pay someone time-and-a-half? Eliminate overtime at your print shop now by releasing a clear statement that says no overtime will be approved until further notice. Alternatively, you could draft a new policy offering employees flex time in lieu if overtime is worked (remember to set limits).
If an existing overtime policy is in place, you may need to get employees to sign off on a new policy. Check with HR, your lawyer, or an HR adviser before you make sweeping changes to existing employee contracts.
Limit Travel and Expenses
It’s true that you need to spend money to make money, but sometimes you need to save money to survive. If things are feeling tight, it may be time to cut your small business staff’s travel and expense budgets, especially if it means saving someone’s job.
Today, video conferencing, instant file delivery and quick communication make face-to-face meetings seem like a luxury. Yes, you can often score more points with a person-to-person sales call, but it may be time to start looking for clients locally.
Reduce Total Hours
Whether voluntary or not, hour reductions can be a way to save jobs while reducing pay. Some employees may welcome the opportunity to work less, but have more flexible hours, while others may resist the idea.
Remember though, reducing hours may reduce your hourly payroll, but it may not have a huge impact on your health insurance costs, unemployment costs or worker’s compensation insurance premiums unless you’re dealing with already part-time print shop employees. Take this into consideration when weighing the pros and cons of hour reductions.
Pay Freezes
Employees aren’t going to like a year without pay raises or bonuses, but they’ll accept it if the alternative is potential job loss. Explain to your staff clearly why you’re implementing a temporary pay freeze and what it means for them. Done right, this move should be accepted with understanding rather than backlash.
What about you? What are you doing at your small business or print job to whether this economy without cutting jobs?
Photo: ChurchHatesTucker
Meat Cards a Big Hit with the No-Carb Dieters
According to the printing experts, your business cards have to stand out to be effective. You don’t have to tell that to Meat Cards, the company behind a new process that actually laser prints on to beef jerky, making what are, essentially, edible business cards.
Personally, I think this is taking novelty printing to a whole new (and very strange) level. How do you transport them? Do you end up smelling like jerky all day? Do dogs follow you around? Where does the recipient store your card? Certainly not in a Rolodex, because according to the Meat Cards website, “MEAT CARDS do not fit in a Rolodex, because their deliciousness CANNOT BE CONTAINED in a Rolodex.”
Okay, that’s pretty funny, but I’m still wondering about the practical side of these cards. According to Meat Cards, they’re working on a sealing method to avoid pocket lint contamination. There is one thing I like about these cards, you can eat them after a business relationship has gone sour.
You can check out a video clip of the cards in action, along with an explanation of how they’re made on G4′s Attack of the Show [link: http://g4tv.com/attackoftheshow/comedy/66753/Business-Cards-Made-of-Meat.html].
Video embed link:
Recycled Paper Quality Same as Virgin Paper
A process that has been around for many years, but is still relatively new to the public is paper recycling. It’s an important process in green printing and in keeping the environment healthy.
So just what is paper recycling?
It’s a process of recovering waste paper and remaking it into new paper products. Almost any household paper can be recycled, including used newspapers, cardboard, packaging, stationery, direct mail, magazines, catalogues, greeting cards and wrapping paper.
Waste paper can be disposed of in three ways. It can be buried, burned, or recycled, and it goes without saying that recycling is the preferred method of “disposal.” There are three categories of paper that can be used as feedstocks for making recycled paper. These are mill broke, pre-consumer waste, and post-consumer waste.
Mill broke is paper trimmings and other paper scrap from the manufacture of paper, and is recycled internally in a paper mill. Pre-consumer waste is material that was discarded before it was ready for consumer use and post-consumer waste is material discarded after consumer use such as old magazines, old telephone directories, and residential mixed paper. Paper that is suitable for recycling is called scrap.
And it makes a lot of sense to buy recycled paper. Paper purchasers can protect the environment, save money, and purchase the best papers available just by buying recycled paper.
A few reasons to buy recycled paper
But what about the quality of recycled paper?
It’s true that as late as the 80s, recycled paper was often of uneven quality, sometimes appearing dark and spotted. Throughout the years, the quality has improved immensely. Today’s recycled paper is available in all colors, including the brightest whites, and meets the highest technical standards, sometimes even exceeding comparable virgin papers. Commercial printers and copier machine manufacturers today agree that recycled paper is suitable for all their machines. They only require good quality paper, whether recycled or virgin.
According to an interview in the Epoch times, Bernd Krause of the Federal Envirnmental Office, there’s no question recycled paper is of high quality.
“Quality recycled paper is very similar to that of virgin paper,” Krause replied, “and certain criteria must be met before we approve of the eco-label, including that standards be met for the intended end-use of the product. The product produced from recycled fibers must be of at least the same quality as the product produced from virgin fibers.”
A ringing endorsement like that can only encourage more printers to use recycled paper and also to encourage more people to recycle their waste paper.
Photo: Jetalone