WAN-IFRA: With many newspaper publishers considering to offer more semi-commercial products printed on coldset-offset presses, what does this mean for UPM in their offer to printers and newspapers?

Thomas Ehrnrooth: This development opens up many new business possibilities for our versatile coldset web offset range, matt coated papers, uncoated fine papers and even telephone directory papers. We are of course delighted to further develop our product portfolio in cooperation with our customers.

We are the biggest producer of printing papers in the world and have the widest range to offer to all printing methods; heatset web offset, rotogravure, coldset web offset, sheet-fed web offset and digital printing.

WAN-IFRA: What are some of the trends in newsprint (brighter, lighter, cheaper or higher quality)?

Thomas Ehrnrooth: Publishers continue to explore the possibility to go towards lighter substances; price per square metre becomes a more important factor than it used to be. In general, if I dare to say, our customers seem more concerned to save costs than looking for ways to upgrade their products with higher paper quality.

We have noticed an important trend, let´s call it material efficiency: publishers and printers would like to have bulkier products (if available) that offer yield advantages to the publisher while preserving the feel and thickness of the product for the reader. That is the real challenge for a paper maker, especially when you produce paper out of recycling paper.

Second big trend is sustainability. Our customers want to be 100% sure that papers they use come from sustainable managed forests, and the production processes meet the strictest environmental criteria. With UPM you can play safe; no surprises to our customers.  

WAN-IFRA: What are your customers' greatest challenge these days in managing their newsprint needs?

Thomas Ehrnrooth: It is difficult to say from our perspective what they regard as their biggest challenge. I would guess that our customers market are nowadays more volatile than ever. They have to manage their supplier base i.e. supply security and price over the business cycles, but on the other hand, their end markets changes fast, which has a big impact in the advertising income and as a consequence pagination and paper consumption. I guess the biggest challenge is to balance both ends to the optimum.

WAN-IFRA: I assume the new UPM ColorCTRL solution is being tested at some of your newspaper clients?

Thomas Ehrnrooth: As you know, we have just started with UPM Colour CTRL development work and are piloting the service. We have selected beta testers in order to find out how this service will work in real life. We hope to gather experience enough before drupa exhibition in order to tell more.

Unfortunately we have no newspaper publisher as beta tester so far – but we would like to welcome one.