Flexibility is the Key

The inability to pass through costs was felt by flexible packaging suppliers and converters alike. Dr. William Llewellyn, senior consultant for AWA Alexander Watson Associates BV, says that raw material suppliers (paper and resin) were not able to pass through all the increases resulting from higher energy costs. As a result, “Overall supplier margins have been reduced as internal cost saving exercises only partially recovered the increases, or are only becoming effective toward the end of the period,” he says.