Graphic Sciences, Inc.

The overall strength of the North American packaging market has led to a series of acquisitions of liquid ink companies during the past year. Along these lines, Mosley Holdings announced the acquisition of Graphic Sciences, a water-based packaging inks and coatings specialist headquartered in Portland, OR, late last month. Graphic Sciences will become part of American Inks and Coatings (AIC), a wholly owned subsidiary of Mosley Holdings. With $68 million in sales in 2010, AIC is the sixth-largest U.S. packaging ink manufacturer. AIC is enjoying excellent growth in flexible packaging and folding cartons, as well as a leadership position in

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Water-based inks remain the overall favorite, but UV-, solvent-, and soy-based inks all retain solid usage niches. by Susan Friedman The objective of the third annual packagePRINTING ink usage survey was simple: Take a back-to-basics look at how solvent-based, water-based, UV, and soy-based inks are faring amid package printers' growing number of substrates, specialized and combination printing needs, and environmental concerns. packagePRINTING asked converters to indicate their ink preferences according to print process and end use. Respondents, speaking from all three major package printing sectors, offered up a blend of selections that illustrate united pockets of need with widely divided issues and applications. Looks