During yesterday afternoon's inevitable low blood sugar moment I was surveying the contents of the vending machine here at PrintWeek Towers and noticed something that points to an apparently growing trend.

Packets of Walkers crisps have a prominent strapline 'made from 100% British potatoes' on the front of them nowadays, and I've seen an increasing amount of this sort of 'Made in Britain/UK' messaging.

It's particularly prevalent in foodstuffs, for fairly obvious reasons, but also other areas such as greetings cards.

At London Fashion Week this week billionaire retailer Philip Green told the FT that Arcadia was manufacturing more goods in the UK, and looking for ways to increase the amount.

This called to mind a blog from 2010 when I was bemoaning a lack of this sort of banging-the-national-drum activity compared with our cousins in the States. And it's also worth giving another mention to Butler Tanner & Dennis' Great British Book marque idea.

I wonder if - given ongoing economic travails, cutbacks, and increasing unemployment - people are becoming more interested, and more aware, of the positive impact in buying 'local'.

Even if it's not possible to have 'Printed by *name*' on a piece, there's surely no harm in suggesting the addition of a 'Printed in Britain' line next time the opportunity arises?

Gosh - 'Print plc in share price leap, shock'.

Communisis' share price has increased by a third over the past ten days. The shares were trading at a heady 39p at the time of typing, and 123,000 shares had changed hands this morning. To put that into context, the 52 week low is 18.75p.

What's going on? The group put out an upbeat trading statement at the end of last month, and it will announce full-year results for 2011 on 1 March.

Most interested to learn what will lie therein. Some in the City seem to be anticipating good news, and some are taking profits now.

I spotted the hashtag #loveyourlocalpaper on Twitter this morning, it seems to be gaining a bit of momentum although it's yet to trend above Harry Potter and the Deathly Vagina (don't ask).

This newspaper-based Twitter activity reminded me that an update is due on a hyper-local newspaper product I wrote about back in 2010.

The little Long Eaton Website Extra mentioned in that piece has grown in pagination and circulation, to the extent that it's now a 32pp full-colour product and is moving to a larger A4 format.

The paper endured something of a printing hiatus just before Christmas when Harmsworth Printing shut the day shift at its Derby plant, but after a bit of to-ing and fro-ing Website Extra publisher Tony Fountain tells me he has now found a new print supplier in Peterborough.

From its homemade origins when 500 copies were stapled together on Tony's kitchen table, the print run is now up to 4,000. The next issue will be out on the 24^th, and I'm going to increase sales by at least one by sending my dad out to get me a copy of the new, improved version. #loveyourlocalpaper indeed.

A quick tip of the hat must go to IPC Media, which in the space of just over a week has put two new print products of note onto the newsstands.

The publication of a special Now magazine tribute to the late Whitney Houston is an excellent example of reactive, on-the-front-foot publishing.

And while the Whitney one-off will have been produced at lightning speed, Marie Claire Runway is a different proposition altogether. The unusual large-size format, paper stock, and distinct look and feel will all have been carefully thought out.

Elsewhere we have another example of online media generating new print, with Egmont's Bin Weevils website (apparently this is some sort of virtual world for nippers) spawning a magazine of its own.

Good to see major publishers playing to print's strengths. And good news for the title's respective printers: Polestar, Ancient House and Wyndeham Group.

A joy-replenishing jaunt to the official unveiling of Duplo International's new UK HQ yesterday provided plenty of food for thought.

It's always uplifting to see a successful, growing company reinvesting, and managing to do so despite dealing with the sort of travails that are affecting SMEs up and down the country.

Chairman Robin Greenhalgh noted that the firm's bank of 28 years standing had abruptly decided to halve Duplo's overdraft, a move he described with dry understatement as "a sort of reverse project Merlin".

Despite such hurdles, the £4m investment in the Addlestone building went ahead as planned, and the Duplo team is justifiably proud of the gleaming new 10,000sqm facility. "At last we have premises to match the brand", says Greenhalgh.

He also proposed an excellent idea, which I'll share with the wider printiverse here. A sort of "pay it forward" for business if you like.

Greenhalgh posits that if firms were able to spend an additional £1,000 a month on the sort of services that would benefit other UK businesses - it could be redecorating, it could be a new staff kitchen, it could be training, hey, it could even be printing - then the cumulative benefit that would flow through to the wider economy would far outweigh that of any government scheme.

I like it. The "Greenhalgh gain", if you like. Or perhaps "Robin's result". Am sending a note to the Forum of Private Business rightaway.

Valentine's Day. Hopefully a bumper period for people involved in various aspects of print production.

Cards, obviously. And an increasing amount of personalised ones, although these are likely to be a straight replacement rather than an additional print piece. That said, a personalised card is more likely to be produced locally than shipped in a container from the Far East.

Many, many boxes of chocolates in suitably lovely packaging.

Flowers - if ordered online will need a nice big transit packaging box to keep them pristine. And I'm sure florists up and down the country will have stocked up on suitable wares from the likes of Fleurwrap for what must surely be their busiest day of the year.

Champagne. Needs a nice label, obviously. And possibly a swanky box too if it's a really posh bottle.

A beautifully printed and bound book of poetry, or perhaps a romantic novel. An e-book, or indeed a hated e-card, just doesn't cut it (well, certainly not in these parts) if a person is attempting to demonstrate some sort of genuine strength of feeling.

Something to amuse, such as the personalised banners available from Massive Message. Judging by the firm's Pinterest board there's no shortage of people willing to go large with their lurv.

And for the broken-hearted? 3D printing will, one day, be able to mend it.

Facebook has been all over the news of late as excitement mounts about its imminent flotation.

The coverage reminded me that a tip of the hat is due to the team at Moo, for successfully securing a groundbreaking deal with the social media giant for Moo's new Facebook Cards offering.

When reading this news I was struck by a couple of things. The new service has kicked off with a sweetener whereby 200,000 Facebook users will get 50 Facebook Cards for free.

By applying some relatively rudimentary maths this results in a figure of ten million free business cards, by anyone's estimation that's quite a lot.

Having tried the service out I can see that Moo is tempting those free customers into spending some actual cash, for example by opting for the Express Shipping option or the addition of a showcase business card holder. Still, I'm sure lots of folk, like me, will stick with the freebie.

I also wondered how the new service would kick off, because if even a tiny percentage of Facebook's circa 845m users tried to order (and the Moo Facebook Cards offering is available worldwide) then it could easily cause an overload of spectacular proportions. Perhaps that's why the launch was relatively low-key. So low-key, in fact, it took me more than an hour to find it. Not helped by the fact that if you search for ‘Facebook Cards' in Facebook itself, the page that comes up has nothing whatsoever to do with the Moo variant. 

If you fancy trying it, the Moo site itself is rather more helpful. Instructions on how to action Facebook Cards can be found here. And I see that the Moo Cards app shows up as having 150,000 active monthly users now. That's not to be sniffed at.

Moo is certainly in an aggressive growth phase. Turnover jumped 50% in the year to December 2010 to £8m and it posted a small profit. It also recently added a new ‘Luxe' business card option printed on swanky Mohawk Superfine 600gsm stock featuring a coloured layer sandwiched between white outers. Want 50 of these cards? That'll be £23.99.

The Facebook deal has the potential to bring Moo's engagingly trendy print offering to the attention of many millions more potential customers. While the eyes of the world are on the Facebook IPO, I'm actually more interested to see what Moo does next.

Moo's motto is 'we love to print'. Which reminds me, it's Valentine's Day tomorrow so time to think about cards of a different nature.  

Britain. Home to the world's largest commercial security printer but not, it seems, any printers capable of printing the tickets for London 2012. How on earth did that happen?

Oh dear, oh dear. News that the Olympic tickets will be printed by American company Weldon, Williams & Lick is a PR disaster for London 2012 organiser LOCOG. When it comes to promo items for the upcoming games that could best be described as 'plastic tat', I can grudgingly accept that this sort of thing will inevitably be sourced from the Far East. But high-value and high-profile items such as the tickets - THE BLOODY TICKETS - are a different matter altogether.

These pieces of paper will have the status of some sort of Willy Wonka-esque item given the huge number of people, myself included, who were unsuccessful in applying for them. And this most prestigious of contracts has gone abroad. *palms forehead*

I'm trying to get hold of the tender document to see precisely what LOCOG's requirements were. No doubt they were complex, but then that's what this sort of security printing is all about.

I have seen a rather disingenuous comment from someone saying they could have suggested 'hundreds' of printing companies who could have done this job. Really? Don't think so. It is a pretty select list. And recent years have been a bit complicated for companies like BemroseBooth, who one might have considered a nailed-on potential supplier at one time, since the glory days when they were printing tickets for the World Cup.

But still, there are a few.

If Seb Coe had written in to my Help Line looking for potential suppliers for this job, my answer would have included the following:

• De La Rue (I know they don't list tickets among their security printing specialties, but I'm sure they would be more than capable of sorting this out as the whole thing sounds like a managed service requirement anyway).
• Kalamazoo
• 3M Security Printing & Systems
• BemroseBooth/Paragon
• Mail Solutions
• Integrity Print
• Secure & Confidential Documents
• CFH
• TALL Group

Per my De La Rue comment, some of these suppliers have ticketing expertise and some don't. But they do all have security printing know-how so it could even have been possible for some sort of consortium approach. And per all my Help Line attempts, no doubt I have missed someone off.

I'm trying to pin the tail on the fail here. A failure by LOCOG in setting the spec? A failure to see beyond price alone? Or a failure by 'UK Security Print plc' to jump on this particular Olympic opportunity with a suitable solution?

"British company buys German engineering business". Never in my wildest dreams did I imagine we'd be writing a variant on that headline.

That it's a British company without any obvious connections to our industry, and they are investing in a manufacturer of printing presses, makes for a double-gosh.

Yesterday's news was greeted with widespread amazement, the Langley Holdings swoop for Manroland's sheetfed business (and its worldwide distribution setup) truly came out of left field.

Why, given the very obvious travails affecting press manufacturers, and the question mark over the long-term picture for the heavy metal side of print kit, does Langley want to get involved in our industry? How long have they been looking into this? As one gobsmacked printing machinery veteran said to me yesterday: "Are they mad, bonkers, or completely bonkers?"

Looking at Langley's results, they appear to be anything but. Preliminary 2011 figures show turnover of €516.6m, an operating margin of 13%, and €240m in cash. This is a successful business of substance.

Manroland insiders, even those who don't yet know whether they fit into the new organisation or not, are understandably delighted at this news. It had looked like the sheetfed sale would be something of a fudge. Instead (assuming the deal is approved by the German cartel authorities) they have clarity and a clear ownership structure.

Perhaps Langley sees something in the potential for the Offenbach factory and global facilities it has acquired that we in the industry don't. This looks to be a strategic investment, intrigued to find out more about what the Brits plan for this venerable German business.

Along with everyone else on planet print, we've been trawling the interweb for information on  founder Tony Langley. And along with everyone else we've discovered that he's very rich, he likes sailing, and he's not a fan of trade fairs, per this Cranes Today article from a decade ago.

Can't wait to meet him at Drupa.

New month, and a new era begins for what was Manroland. Administrator Werner Schneider met his deadline in having some sort of solution in place by the end of January. Well, at least a formative one.

The Augsburg web offset business, which always looked like the most saleable part of the group based on the ongoing service and support requirement alone, has a new owner in the shape of Possehl Group. Possehl also owns mailroom systems specialist Böwe Systec (acquired from the same administrator, as it happens), and Böwe is also headquartered in Augsburg so that should be convenient in terms of Possehl's nascent print division.

'Manroland Augsburg' (at the moment it's not clear whether the Manroland name will continue, but it appears likely it will do in some form) will be reduced in size by a third to 1,473 staff, previously it employed 2,248.

How Possehl will implement the worldwide support structure required to meet the needs of the existing customer base will be the next interesting thing. Closely followed by whether it does eventually take over the Plauen factory too (number of employees there cut by 57% to 300). In the meantime Werner Schneider will continue to run it under some sort of extended administration.

The solution for the Offenbach sheetfed facility could be described as being in a formative stage. The number of employees will be reduced by nearly 60%, from 1,807 to 750. We're told there's an MBO deal underway but the investment required to back it is still to be secured. So there's still a deal of uncertainty about the future for this facility, although what does seem pretty certain is there's no way it will be able to continue manufacturing the same range of press formats as the Manroland of old.

At the time of writing the worldwide sales and service operations remain in a form of limbo. Hopefully the next few days will bring further clarity for staff and customers.

Became terribly over-excited yesterday afternoon upon meeting a double-Olympic gold medal winner. He even let me hold his medals! That said, he let all my colleagues hold them too.

Steve Williams, for it was he, was in the coxless fours boat along with Matthew Pinsent, James Cracknell and Ed Coode in Great Britain's heart-stoppingly narrow victory over the Canadian crew  at the Athens games in 2004. He then returned to win again with a different crew in Beijing in 2008.

Williams was speaking at our staff conference. His tale of the dedication and determination required to be a world-class rower (six hours of agonising training every day for four years, one day off a month if you're lucky) is enough to make mere mortals feel, well, just that.

In comparison, we journalists (at least this one) consider it a major achievement if we're at our desk with a latte by 9.30am. 

What I liked about his speech was that he didn't try to draw any clunky parallels between rowing and the challenges facing the media business, he simply talked about how making many tiny improvements during training had helped the crew shave off a seemingly insurmountable five second deficit between the GB team's best time and that of the Canadians.

This incremental improvement approach must surely be relevant for all types of businesses. It certainly is for us here at Haymarket. And it reminded me of something Andrew Scrimgeour, the MD at AJS Labels, said at a Directors' Briefing held by PrintWeek and Fuji last year.

Andrew also spoke about how small changes, made by a lot of people, can make a big difference. Along with something he calls "the 1% rule - or the power of one".  His point being that generally speaking, most people can produce a 1% improvement in what they do. And all those one percents flow down to make a much bigger profit improvement to the bottom line.

Williams explained that everything the crew did in training was based around one simple question "will it make the boat go faster?" If not, don't waste any effort on it.

And Scrimgeour, similarly, talked of his passion for cutting out the sort of red tape and bureaucracy that can crush the spirit of a company. He said firms should examine their processes and procedures and scrap any that aren't serving a real purpose.

In the epic Athens race Great Britain's margin of victory was just 0.08 seconds, proving that sometimes the tiniest improvement can make a winning difference.

Significant news from a huge player in the toluene-scented end of the printing industry, as Bertelsmann decides to hive off its worldwide gravure operations (plus a soupçon of web offset) into a separate venture.

The creation of a new, €1.2bn turnover predominantly gravure business is interesting in the context of all the talk in recent years about the need for consolidation in the European gravure market. Last year Roto Smeets boss John Caris, a long-time champion of the consolidation cause, stepped down from his role after being frustrated in his efforts to put a deal of this ilk together for Smeets.

It also made me realise that Polestar is a mere minnow in comparison, having now shrunk down to a UK-only operation with sales of £262m - a decade ago  that figure was £535m and the group had a continental footprint with operations in Hungary and Spain.

The Bertelsmann suits say the spin-off is not a precursor to a sale of this new, as yet unnamed print giant. They would say that, wouldn't they? Donning my Gipsy Rose Francis headscarf and peering into my crystal ball made from an old Chromacom lens, I say it will be.

A promo email arrived from Apple today, pushing "beautiful one-of-a-kind cards" through its own particular variant of personalised cards, which involves letterpress designs overprinted digitally. At least, I think that's how they do it.

This isn't new, they've been offering personalised cards and photobooks through the iTunes store since 2010. But now there a new, improved app to make things even easier.

It's interesting that such a high-tech business should choose to meld the beauty of letterpress with digital printing. However, judging from the feedback on the site (pasted below), this is not an altogether happy union and it doesn't sound like it meets the exacting standards of the late Steve Jobs viz imputing the requisite level of quality and desirability.

Next task: splash out £3.99 on something (a 60% price increase in just over a year, by the way) so I can see for myself if the negative comments are justified.

Customer Reviews

Product is poor!     

by Anji Naiken

I thought this app would be a good way, never to forget a card or shop around for one and then remember to buy a stamp and then post it! WRONG.
The card looks VERY cheap. Like you printed it at home. Secondly, it took 10 days to arrive. All I can say is they need to improve this 100 times over before I would use it again.

 

Shocking

by Paul Ensell

Poor selection of designs, very limited customisation, poor quality and it took 15 days to be delivered. 15 days! So much for 1-3 business days. My relation received their card 11 days late. Yeah cheers. I'll be sticking with Moonpig!

 

Absolute rubbish!

by Simon Pearce

Poor choice of card designs, overpriced, slow delivery (cards took a week to arrive). When they did come they're small and look like a kid has printed them on his home printer. AVOID!

I had planned to do a shriek-making blog saying "guess what, it's only 100 days until Drupa", but as usual events have overtaken me. We're into double-digits as of today, it being a mere 99 days until the greatest print show on earth opens its doors. Double-shriek, then.

Per our interview with Drupa 2012 director Manuel Mataré, it looks like the exhibition will essentially be full despite recent events at Manroland and Kodak and the travails afflicting a raft of industry suppliers. It's difficult, nay impossible, to envisage Drupa having one of those hurriedly thrown together ‘networking areas' involving a few pot plants and some chairs that are the standard way of filling up unsold hall space at lesser events.

That said, there is still space available, albeit subject to a wait list. And I did hear tell of one exhibitor who was suitably gleeful about actually being able to increase their stand space, something that would have been unheard of a couple of show cycles ago.

The vibe at Drupa will be really fascinating. The last show had a relatively upbeat and sunny mood, but shortly afterwards the financial crisis hit and the world went mad. Orders for new equipment dried up. 

It's still pretty bonkers, what with the Eurozone crisis rumbling on and ongoing structural upheaval in the industry. One could say that "hope for the best but plan for the worst" should be the adage as we approach the show.

Still, for anyone interested in getting up close to the latest technologies that will be central to print's future, Drupa remains an essential must-see in itself.

Remember that rather peculiar 2009 fly-on-the-wall documentary about Sir John Madejski? Events over the weekend caused me to revisit it.

On Saturday Sir John announced that he has found the requisite billionaire and is selling a 51% stake in his beloved Reading FC to a rich Russian for some £40m. In my mind's eye I have an image of Sir John in the £5m mansion featured in the TV programme, in a room filled with spinning plates on sticks. Each plate carries an enormous pile of money. Something like £90m on the Goodhead plate, £20m on the Sackville Properties plate, £40m on the Reading FC plate, £27m on Clearview Traffic (remember this is the company that he cites as being his favourite). The Sackville Developments (Reading) plate, and £25m, already lies on the floor in pieces.

The sale last year of Malaysian Autotrader for £18m, and now of Reading FC would appear to mark the last of Sir John's assets that are readily saleable. He's sold a bunch of artworks and classic cars too. It seems to me that the plates are wobbling. Last Friday someone in the UK won £41m on the Euromillions lottery. To most people that would be a life-changing amount of money that would take some spending. For Sir John, it would be a drop in his ocean of liabilities.

Sir John will be 71 in a few months. It would be understandable if he felt it was time to retire and put his feet up. The problem is he has a lot of onerous liabilities to tidy up before he can do that. His two daughters have seen their potential inheritance dwindle dramatically.

I'm fascinated to see how he uses the Russian money. Will he use it to extract himself from one or more of his loss-making businesses, or will he throw even more money at them?