Adapting to challenges in the digital textile market

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Adapting to challenges in the digital textile market

The digital textile market presents unique challenges and opportunities. This fireside chat will explore strategies to overcome these obstacles and stimulate growth. By focusing on innovative product development and strategic market positioning, businesses can capitalise on emerging trends. Key areas of investigation include the adoption of sustainable practices, the integration of advanced technologies, and the cultivation of strong customer relationships.

Joseph Link
Music. Hello everyone, and welcome to the webinar. I'm Joseph link, a senior editor and the digital textile Lead here at WTIN, and today I'm joined by Sun Chemicals Product Marketing Manager Simon Daplyn and the company's business leader for textiles, Edri Baggi. We'll be chatting about how best to adapt to current challenges in the digital textile printing market, and how new products and strategies will help drive growth in what has become a difficult period for many equipment and consumable providers. But before we begin, there is a little bit of housekeeping. If you have any questions during this discussion, please type them into the Q and A question box in your zoom control panel. And also please note that this session is being recorded and you will be sent a link to the recording in the next few days. So Simon and Edri, thank you very much for joining me today to begin with before we get into the details of the discussion, and perhaps you could each just tell viewers who might not be familiar with you a little bit about your experience and expertise in the industry. Starting with you, perhaps Simon,

Simon Daplyn
sure. Hi Joe, thanks everybody for joining. So yeah. My name is Simon Daplyn. I've been working with Sun Chemical for the last four and a half years, since the acquisition of sensing technologies. Some of you may be aware that some made that acquisition in around July 2020, and have a fairly long background in the textile industry from or the digital part, at least from product development and working on the on the chemistry side of it, I'm a chemist by training all the way through to the Sales part, and now working more on the product management side to help define the strategy of the technologies that we're developing and how they can benefit our customers in the wider market. Edri. 

Edri Baggi
Thank you, Joseph. Nice to meet you everyone. Thank you for attending. My name is Edri Baggi. I live in Italy, and as mentioned, I'm the business leader for textiles. I also come to some chemical after the acquisition of sentient imaging technologies that I joined in 2013 at the beginning as an essential manager. And then little by little, I grew within the company to the level of business, business leader now in Sun Chemical. My background is as an engineer, but I spent my whole career in textile, first with the family business, then sentient and now some chemical,

Joseph Link
that's brilliant. Well, thank you like I'll thank you both again for joining. I'm sure you're going to share some really insightful information with the viewers. To begin with. I think it's important to discuss some of the general market challenges. So Andrew, if you could begin, could you talk us through some of the main challenges currently facing the textile printing market?

Edri Baggi
Sure, this is, unfortunately, one of the most challenging time that the textile market has faced in many, many years due to a long list of reasons, also rooting back into political and economical situation in several in other countries, and also the unfortunate situation that we see with The conflicts going on in Europe and in the Middle East, the textile industry, unfortunately, due to these aspects, has seen a lot of disruption and also a lot of reduced volume. In particular in Europe, the textile industry face a significant drop in volume due to reduced spending capacity of consumers. These reduced spending capacity is due to the uncertainty that people are facing. And of course, today, well known inflation and interest rate situation, reduced spending capacity has also led to a fragment, more fragmented ordering pattern, pattern from buyers. It's very unpredictable to forecast what consumers will buy in the next weeks or future months, and so the management of the inventory has become a critical aspect for everyone in the industry. On top of this, we are also facing we are also experiencing one of the most significant changes in the fashion trend today. If we look at the offering from the major brands, we really see very, very little printing. This is normal, and it has always been like this the case in fashion, because there are trends, but this one is really lasting for long, impacting overall on the volume that the textile market is outputting, on outputting one of the last significant challenges that the textile market is facing is also. Sustainability. This is a big topic that we could go on for hours discussing about. But today, there is a strong push from the market to move towards a more sustainable, more sustainable processes for the textile industry, for the textile industry, which brands are, of course, well capturing imposing high demand and limitations in the in the energy and water consumption that can be used in the manufacturing processes of textile these are creates new challenges for the printing industries that need to address need to complete change, in some cases, also their world production process to be compliant with these new requirements from the brands, consumers more and more aware and sensible to this sustainability topic, topic, they look for information. They want to know how it's made, where it's made, the impact on the environment that the garments they are wearing, they're wearing as as add in the manufacturing process. So the textile industry is addressing all these challenges at the same time, which makes it even more difficult.

Joseph Link
And obviously key to the to the future success and prosper. The prosperity of the textile printing market is the growth of digital in the inkjet printing process. So could you talk me through how the digital printing market has evolved in recent years, and how you're aiming for growth in that sector.

Edri Baggi
Yeah, well, the digital processes become now a reality, so it's not even a trend anymore. This is a reality, and today, a big percentage of the global output is manufactured by digital in textile. When it comes to growth overall, the digital market is definitely still growing, although, unfortunately, it's very segmented. It's very fragmented, where the growth happens in the in Europe, unfortunately, due to the drop of demand and inflation and high interest rate, the market is at the moment, not growing. All investments are frozen, and there is already on the market an excess of capacity. On the other side, when we go to when we move to Asia, there is a significant conversion path from conventional to digital happening now and again, this is dictated by the need to quick response to to demand, but to a demand that is today made by many short orders, short runs, rather than long like in The past, making digital painting very appealing for manufacturers in Asia, we also face another trend. We have internal demands that is growing a lot, compared, in particular to Europe, generating also, in this case, a demand for increased capacity of digital printing, and they have specific technology requirements to address these market that are not always the same that they have in place when they need to satisfy when they need to supply goods to European or US market.

Joseph Link
Okay, no, that's really interesting. And if I could just focus on on the ink chemistries within the Digital textile printing market, there's been a lot of talk about them and potential growth of of pigments. How does the market differ between each of the chemistries? Is one growing more than the other? Perhaps?

Edri Baggi
Yeah, I would say that today, pigment is the fastest growing technology in the market, although the overall total volume for pigment is not yet as big as many other chemistries, but there is a lot of interest in pigment because it's perceived as the most sustainable solution to address the market needs. A limitation is that sometimes it's still perceived as not performing as a reactive for instance. But with the recent developments, we see that this gap is getting smaller and smaller. So today, for some application, for some market, pigment can really be considered as a valuable solution, valuable replacement for reactive. The reactive volume, if we look at in general, in the market is more or less flat or slightly decreasing due to the demand in the market. Another fast growing technology is DTF, so the direct to film for garments application. This is a technology that. Up, entered in Europa a few years ago and nowadays, again, considered one of the most common technologies in the market when it comes to print on T shirts or other items for personalizations or some promotional campaigns. Unfortunately, we see that today, the salination volume is slightly decreasing, but simply because this is related to the to the demand of polyester in the fashion industry, which is right now under a fashion trend, slightly lower than in the past, but Surya is still very, very strong and remains probably the major ink sold on the market today, because it remains very, very strong in other applications, like graphics of signage, sportswear, but also events. We just had the Olympics that were a great driver for the use of sublimation. So this is still one of the main technology today implemented on the market.

Joseph Link
That's really interesting. And I guess, well, you touched on D to F there, and you mentioned sustainability in a previous answer. And when it comes to D to F and sustainability, that's that's quite a challenge in its in itself, isn't it, not necessarily from an ink standpoint, but more from the use of the plastic film.

Edri Baggi
It is, it is, but in fact, the direction of innovation is to try to address this problem with future generation of ink that won't require the use of plastic films in the process. 

Joseph Link
Yeah, it's probably worth talking about the supply chain disruption, because obviously, back in I think it was 21/22 as we exited from the COVID 19 restrictions, the supply chain bottlenecks really became quite an issue. Are they still problematic? And what are the costs like? Because costs spiked in there a couple of years ago.

Edri Baggi
 Unfortunately, there is still a lot of disruption in supply chain. In this case, we need to probably split into two different type of disruption. There is definitely a disruption in textile because what was supposed to be a reshoring process due to COVID and this disruption, unfortunately, did not really happen. And Asia, despite the difficulties in the supply chain, in in the investor routes, still remains one of the key player in a textile manufacturing Inc, when instead it comes we look at the raw material for the ink industry, textile, ink industry. Unfortunately, we still see some challenges there, mostly due to increased cost in transportation and extended time lead time to get the raw materials. This is due to the vessel routes that are still longer than in the past, due to the sweat canal situation generating challenges in the demand planning, in the forecasting, in the ordering pattern to manufacturers, and, of course, we try to minimize, we need to try to minimize the impact of these challenges on our customers getting closer to them, to cover their needs, and to reduce as much as possible the impact on of transportation cost on their shoulders.

Joseph Link
Of course, absolutely. Um, so if we can move on and talk a little bit about innovation, and perhaps I could direct this question to Simon, what role does innovation play in some chemicals approach to overcoming the challenges in the textile market?

Simon Daplyn
Thanks, Joe. Well, I think in general, like innovation is kind of a much use buzzword, but it really is one of the ways that we can navigate these difficult times that EDRI has been been discussing. I mean, from our point of view at Sun chemical, we're always trying to focus on providing a value proposition and a differentiate, or the possibility for our customers to differentiate themselves versus their competitors, and a lot of that stems out of listening to the pain points, some of which Eddie's highlighted, in terms of supply to the market, how quickly they can turn things around, but also some of those sustainability aspects, and then building products that kind of meet those needs. And innovation is is not just about developing a brand new technology that that no one's seen before, like, uh, clearly, the the DTF revolution has has stemmed from a from a from an innovation from China, where they've developed a whole new process for decorating and providing a. A system that allows you to more or less get closer to a screen print in a way with the digital process that that finds a home quite nicely in certain parts of the market. But there are other ways where we can adapt technology and processes to maybe reducing consumption and help customers save money or be more efficient. So it depends on the specific direction of travel, but there's, there's different ways in which we can innovate. To give you a couple of examples, we we, towards the end of last year, launched a new reactive Inc product and and for a long time, we thought reactive in its current form had been kind of pushed to its limits in terms of the the die loading that we could get into a product, or some of the the chemicals that perhaps were once used and have been removed to comply with with certain standards, but we were able to look at specific pain points of of our customers in terms of getting the colors at the right, At the similar levels of saturation, so that they could be more efficient in how they use the ink and and also work on some of the fixation parameters, so that we could improve a bit the fixation of colors like cyan and blue, which have notoriously had challenges. And if we can improve the fixation by a little bit, not only do we get a better color on the fabric, we reduce the amount of dye that's then washed out in the post process, and that obviously brings other benefit points. So it may seem like a small innovation in terms of you get a slightly higher color rating, but then you get less waste dye. You can put slightly less ink down. You use less the less dyes coming out in the effluent, which means less chemicals needed to treat the wastewater from the from the washing process, for example, and things like that have many incremental benefits for our customers, and allow them to kind of step on in their production and in their workflows sometimes. So as I said, it's not always a brand new technology, but adapting to others. But certainly, there are other things that we're working on and have been working on that are, I would say, more innovative or more in terms of the product development life cycle, where we we can hopefully provide customers with with value, with with new products that are that are on the radar very soon.

Joseph Link
Okay, could, could you elaborate on what those new products and

Simon Daplyn
sure, sorry, it's this year. Really has been a year of of kind of development for us. So we, we launched in FESPA in March this year, our director filming again, probably taking a step and looking it was. It caught everyone a little bit by surprise how quick the uptake of the technology was. Of course, we were aware of it and tried to understand the market. But some chemicals never in the DTG market, right? So, and at the time, it was felt it was kind of an alternative to DTG, which it is, but what, what it's allowed people to do is to react very quickly, have a have a workflow at a pretty reasonable price point, in terms of the hardware as well, versus some of the direct to garment technology, and with a throughput That's more than comparable. And so where, what we decided to do there was kind of take a lot of information from the market and from users and really understand how we needed to innovate to be competitive in that space. And so there, we've worked a lot on process efficiency, on the reliability of the product. So especially with white inks, for example, that's quite a that's quite a challenging technology to stabilize, to keep stable in the system. So working a lot on the stability there, to make sure that we don't have a lot of sedimentation, that the users don't need to do a lot of cleaning cycles, that we get a good level of opacity and repeatable opacity, so we're not having to do cleans or constantly update the system in order to get the same product performance time and time again. So so that is a product that I think has provided us with, with a with a good foot in the market, and we we expect that continued to grow despite some of the challenges. And I think there'll be new technology that comes off the back of some of the challenges you mentioned, in terms of plastic film, both from a substrate and a chemistry. Ink point of view, we've also been working a lot in the pigment area, as every mentioned, it's very clear that that's a growing area of the market, and one of the reasons it's in the last 18 months had a lot of interest is perhaps some of the reactive volume is has been dropping off a bit, and maybe people had capacity to look at pigment technology in a bit more, bit more closely. So where, where customers may have had three, three or four. The printers, printing reactive, if they only have capacity for three, then maybe the fourth, they were willing to start looking at the technology, and that's half the battle is, and why pigment hasn't grown potentially to the extent that some people expected it to. It's just the capacity. And have people having the opportunity to test it and understand whether it's worth their investment. We've done a lot of work there. We're very lucky in some chemical that we have a very a more integrated workflow, let's say, with with control of pigment powders that we then disperse ourselves to create the ink. So we've done a lot of work on the dispersion chemistry to provide, again, very high color rating dispersions, but very stable, and then adapt those to the different print technologies. So within quarter one next year, probably from January, you'll see new products from some chemical in the pigment space for each of the kind of, what we call the viscosity bands. So for, for low viscosity, more white format printers based on Epson technology, through to the more industrial keyer based mid viscosity range, and the higher viscosity with with the prevalence of Rico and dimatics, print heads now coming more more and more commonly onto the market, and there it's been about adapting that dispersion technology for stability and color strength, particularly looking at the strength of black, for example, which we know is a is where there's a bit of a gap between digital and conventional printing, Looking at the fastness use of the the resin technologies, and how we try and grow the application space in terms of the number of fabrics that are compatible with with digital printing, with with pigment. So there's a there's a lot of kind of different innovation going on there, which, which should all bear fruit early, New Year.

Joseph Link
Okay, and I was going to ask you, Simon, before I go back to Edri, about trends in sustainable textile production. I know you kind of touched on it a little bit with your answers already, but it does tie in with an audience question, if you don't mind me asking that now as well, because it relates to pigment and the use of pre treatments in pigment printing. So obviously, pigments are going to be as efficient as they've been marketed as it means that they can't afford to use a pre treatment, essentially. So how is research and development in pigment inks without the need of a pre treatment, essentially? And that was asked by Remo Golay, I apologize if I pronounced the name wrong, but yeah,

Simon Daplyn
no. Thanks for the question. Remind now that's it's a really good question, and it really depends on on your approach. So I would say the technology, a lot of the technologies that's developed, including us, it will come out, will will be usable without a pre treatment. But one of one of the challenges always with without a pre treatment, is the different natures of fabrics, right? The different weaves, the constructions, whether it's a knitted or a woven fabric, completely changes the surface and how the ink will penetrate the surface. If you want to start printing onto cotton and polyester and cotton poly blends of different levels, to have a tab and ink solution that will manage all of that in exactly the same way is is extremely challenging, and often will require different levels of of ink and with with the pigment technology, One of the one of the challenges is to limit the penetration a little bit so the more ink that soaks into the fibers, the more it penetrates in the the less density you get on the surface. And the big challenge with pigment has always been the differential difference between pigment and reactive or pigment and sublimation in the color strength, and to get that color strength closer or on a path, we need to keep as much as the color at the surface, but also make sure it doesn't rub off and has the right abrasion resistance as well. So it's why pigment is possibly the most challenging technology from a digital point of view, whereas it's it's fairly simple in the in the world of analog. And so our our typical approach is to try and use a workflow that makes the most sense for the market at the time and the customers. So in this case, we we looked at a lot of technologies. As I say, We believe our new products will will work in both configurations, but we believe you get a significant value still from the application of a pre treatment, in terms of if you have the pre treatment applied by stenter or kind of fairly simple process, it doesn't have to be complex, but it then gives you the freedom to put less ink down, to concentrate the color, to potentially improve the. The wash and abrasion resistance as well, without them needing to put post treatments on. There are those solutions in the market way you you have a pigment with, without, without a binder, right? And then, but there's a post treatment. And then, in some cases, there's, there's fix fixators and things after the printing process. And I think, to keep the workflow simple and follow the pre treat the fabric, print on it, fix it. You're good to go. Is, is really the approach we took to try and minimize the disruption in the in the customer's supply chain, in the application workflow, in terms of its link back to sustainability. I think then it's also about control of the chemistry and the chemicals that that you're using, right? So as long as your ink and your pre treatment are tuned in a way, and that you've got a good measure of your of your chemicals, you can ultimately end up potentially putting less ink down, which sounds counterintuitive, right? But the the more competitive we can make it in terms of being efficient with the amount of ink that we use, the more people are going to adopt the technology as well. So from from our point of view, it's trying to make pigment the most attractive proposition it can be developing sustainable but cost effective solutions and reducing the reliance on water in the overall process. So yes, there will be obviously water in the Incan, in the pre treatment, but once that's dried and the print is then dried, there's no need for a post washing process or stuff like that. So some people still will, and one of the biggest challenges is with the handle of the fabric afterwards and how it feels. And again, we've worked very hard to make minimize, minimize that, to to ensure that we have the most natural feel after the after the print as possible.

Joseph Link
Okay, well, it's easy. It's good to hear that there's so much happening in that in that area, it's been much talked about for quite a few years. And obviously there's going to be more developments on the on the horizon. So that's good. Edri, if I, if I could return to you and following on from some of the challenges you you highlighted earlier, could you explain to the viewers what strategies some chemical has adopted to stay competitive in in the textile market?

Edri Baggi
Sure, until, despite the fact that the market is so difficult at the moment, this remains one of the most appealing market where, and every day we see new competitors coming in the market, in a digital textile business for us, being part of a big family like sun chemical is be a key to stay competitive in the market, because Sun chemical is a company dedicated to the ink business. So who knows and perfectly understands the dynamic of the market for the ink demand, as mentioned by Simon right after the acquisition, we have completely renewed our product portfolio to make it more aligned with what are today's market requirements, this gave us already a big step ahead in remaining competitive on the market, because today, our products are perfectly aligned with the needs of the of the of the consumers. Second, a second great step taken by some chemical has been defected to allow us to move part of our manufacturing into our own plant in China. In fact, since when we launched the new reactive ink, already mentioned by Simon, we have moved manufacturing of this ink family only in our plant in China for a moment. This is the setup we maintain the remaining products manufactured in Switzerland, while reactive is now manufactured in China. This is because not only we are closer to the raw material suppliers, but we are also closer to our main end user markets where we distribute reactive ink, which are mostly South Asian countries, but also, of course, Turkey, Brazil and last but not least, Europe. Another key action taken in place by some chemical to remain competitive is that we have increased our sales team network by hiring new people in the territory in key strategic countries, so that we can offer a full coverage and a full service in our main markets, referring to Brazil, Turkey, India, Pakistan, and now also South Asia, Where from January, we will also have a dedicated person. So with this new setup, we really want to be very, very close to our customers with the offering them, not only sustainable, but also very, very competitive, high quality product portfolio. 

Joseph Link
So. From what you've said, agility seems to underpin some chemicals strategy. Could you elaborate on how significant the ability to be agility? Agile is?

Edri Baggi
Yes, and again, it refers to what we discussed at the beginning of this or this webinar. Because today, the market is totally unpredictable for everyone. So in particular, also our customers do not know if a specific item will sell well or not and for how long. So it's key to be very agile, very flexible, to supply our customers and to follow their needs. This comes at different levels, first of all, of manufacturing, so we need to be able to react immediately to unforecasted or unpredictable orders. But at the same time, we need to be close to our customers, because, as we mentioned before, transport and not only are expensive, but now they also take long time. So to be able to react, we need to be close to them, cutting the transportation time and offering them the possibility to buy any quantity from a warehouse near to them. So this is also another key action taken by some chemical to increase our level of service and proximity to our customers, we have implemented in our main territories, again, a lot of warehouses. Again, I refer to Turkey, India, Brazil, Pakistan, of course, in Europe as well, but also in China, US, Mexico, and the next one will probably be also in Bangladesh. And they are all in manage in some chemical plants, in some chemical warehouses managed by our people taking care of the business in the territory.

Joseph Link
So strategic partnerships are also key to driving growth in in the textile industry. Could you tell me a little bit about some chemicals strategic partnerships and the role they play

Edri Baggi
absolutely so it has always been a key strategy for some chemical, to partner with machine manufacturers, because everyone needs to focus on her main business. For some chemical, it's the ink business. For the machine manufacturers, normally it's the machine development, but through this partnership, we can really give them a 360 degrees support, generating also the possibility to access to innovation by working together together. It's together is how we deliver the best result, the best result in particular with the machine manufacturer in particular. Today, when we think about innovation, innovation cannot include only one aspect of the process. It needs to include every aspect of the process in a textile industry, from the machine together with the ink together with the post treatment, to deliver an innovative solution. This is why we collaborate with machine manufacturers, of course, but also with all the players in the industry for pre and post treatment, so that we can really develop a full a full solution for our customers. We believe that together, we achieve more than as one, and despite the fact that we are quite big, and we have people in strategic territories, but our partnership, also with our key distributors, is the key, one of the key for our success. We'll still work a lot with distributors in several regions, in particular for the establishment business today, the distributors, they still have a key role in the textile industry, because they really have the market in their hands. They can enter to any customers. They can offer an increased level of service by offering multiple products and giving customers a close service for the technical assistance. For us, it's important to work with distributors still, and in particular, we have them in Bangladesh, but in us as well, in Brazil, in Turkey and in Central America, and we are always looking for new distributors also in other regions.

Joseph Link
Okay, that's really interesting. And so I mean that it's fair to say that the digital textile printing market has evolved an awful lot over the last five years. But if we look ahead to the next 510, years even, what are going to be the the key trends shaping the industry? And perhaps, Simon, if you, if you could answer that one? 

Simon Daplyn
Yeah. Yeah, sure. I think, I think it's kind of, I think EDRI mentioned earlier is kind of a strange place we're at in the industry at the moment where we have many, many years of growth, right and then, and then COVID kind of put a big hiccup or a big hurdle in the way. And I think your own data recently released, Joe is still showing, more or less we're we're not running at the same volume, still as as the 2021, which, which, I guess was the big boom after the after the lockdown period. I think, you know people, especially in Europe, yeah, Europe in particular, is really lagging. I'm not sure we're even at 2019 numbers. So if you think that's been a fairly significant period of stagnation of an industry that if you read all the reports, like outside of the data, or you've you find information from elsewhere, it still has a pretty aggressive compound annual growth rate prediction for for the coming years. And so that must mean that there's, there's an appetite still for for the technology, but it's, it's about how we now accelerate that conversion from from conventional to digital processes, and a lot of that will be driven by the fragmented state of the market as it is now, and the requirement for agility, right? I think one of the can I take two separate points. One, let's, let's deal with the, let's say, the commercial part of the market, and how the market is changing. Because one of, one of the significant changes that that we see is a kind of squeeze of the middle of the market so and a pivot of brands. So brands like Inditex, which were essentially the first, the pioneers of fast fashion, right, are are are pivoting away a little bit from that fast fashion message, partly because there's, especially in Europe, there's, there's been quite a big backlash against fast fashion, and we believe it's one of the reasons why the European market has struggled a bit more than others. So you have that center ground of the market where people are willing to pay a bit more less clothes are being sold, but maybe it's a higher quality level, or perceived quality level, because actually, the products coming out of those fast fashion houses were not necessarily inferior quality, but maybe there was a perception that that was the case. But on the other hand, you've got the rise of what we call super fast fashion, the likes of brands like Shein from from China, who are able to produce incredibly cheap clothing. And there's maybe a boom there, in in in certain parts of the market around the world, where people are very enticed by that kind of of product, where it's very cheap, as Andrew mentioned, cost of living, squeeze has kind of prompted that well, so too.

Joseph Link
I was just going to ask, based on what you said, is cost still the deciding factor in purchasing decisions over quality? Or

Simon Daplyn
are you whether we, whether we like to admit it or not? I think most people believe that to be the case. There's that this one of the it's one of the challenges for sustainability is, is people are willing to invest in sustainable technology, but not for a super premium. But it depends, depends like regionally, it's quite different. I think in Europe, we have seen a trend of people buying less, but maybe investing in a higher quality product. Although the really top end of the market is suffering as well. The luxury goods market, for the first time, sort of really starts to struggle. 

Joseph Link
If you really look in traditional that women's pretty strong, doesn't it? Yeah, it has done periods of economic struggle,

Simon Daplyn
exactly. And now we see it struggling for probably the first time. And then you have that middle ground, and then that's doing okay. And then the super fast fashion is where there's a bit of a it's a bit incongruous with with what we would normally see, or the backlash against against fast fashion. So that's that's quite an interesting trend in terms of fulfillment, what we see, as every mentioned, is the although there's no reassuring drive in the way that we expected there to be after COVID, where we expected brands to produce more locally to the consumer. For sure, there's, there's a reluctance to invest in high levels of inventory. One of the reasons the industry has suffered a little bit in the last couple of years, as well as the there was, there was a huge amount of inventory, and you can't destroy that anymore. Gone are the days where. People do, let's say it's not. People would say immoral, but destroying or burning of unsold goods, right? People don't do that anymore. They continue to sell them. So it's still a lot of what you'll see in the winter sales this year is product that was probably produced 18 months two years ago that didn't sell. And so what, what customers value now is agility and stock close to the market, or to be able to produce close and on demand. And that's where Andrew mentioned that the local warehousing stuff really helps, because people don't want to invest a lot in inventory, whether that's in finished goods, whether that's in the raw materials to produce the goods. So being agile, and having the ability to be agile is going to be critical in terms of how stuff is going to be made in the future. We're certain of that in terms if I take it as a technology trend and what's going to happen, for sure, there will be further growth and cementing of the pigment position. We've talked about it a lot. It has been talked about a lot without really coming to fruition. But I think technology has got to the point now, and the competitive landscape is at the point now where it's it's not a super premium for pigment. So the price has come down, and the quality has improved enormously throughout all the supply, all the suppliers. And I think that that can only be a good thing in pushing the technology which, which has long been argued as a more sustainable option, versus something like reactive or direct disperse printing, which, which has a lot of different chemicals in pre treatments and the need to for steaming and washing and post processing. So I think you will see a further transition to that. To further elaborate on the question from earlier, I think that will be on two fronts. For sure, there will be a lot of technology that still requires a pre treatment for all the reasons I mentioned earlier, and absolutely there are people now coming and saying that non a non pre treatment solutions available, and we'll see which direction comes out. I think they'll run in parallel for a number of years yet to until pigment really gains a foothold. Because the reality is, it's still a tiny fraction of the digital printing market, let alone the overall textile printing market. I think you'll also see innovation in other processes. It won't necessarily all come from the chemistry, although I think there will be some. For example, we see growth in the interest in in acid printing, again, as a trend, I think swimwear and silk and things like that becoming more common high performance sportswear. So perhaps, where people are investing more in more affordable options of yoga wear and stuff like that, that the higher end brands are now doing extremely well, and they're focused more on nylon with with acid rather than with sublimation. So there's growth there, and we're certainly working in that area as well to try and produce more efficient, more sustainable solutions. And the reality is, all of the big brands have signed up to some kind of sustainability goal reduction in carbon, and those kind of things in parallel with what's coming now, which is digital product, product passports within the textile industry now, right? So that's going to really have a focus and potentially benefit digital print in terms of efficient use of chemicals, reducing waste, understanding the provenance and where every part of your your product comes from. So I think there's going to be quite a few changes coming up, but I think digital print will be very well placed to meet some of those needs.

Joseph Link
Well, it's really insightful. And I mean, I often get asked in my position about what the market share is of inkjet versus rotary screen printing and okay, the market, the digital market, might have plateaued a bit over the last couple of years, but I suspect I don't have the numbers in front of me to really confirm this. But for the rotary screen printing market, I imagine it's fair a lot worse. But I was wondering what your thoughts might be on that I think as as as populations grow and markets grow, like both technologies, will it really?

Simon Daplyn
 It depends on the specific solution. One of the one of the challenges versus conventional is in the pigment space. I mean, at least 50% of the conventional printed product is done with pigment, whereas we're a tiny fraction, 5% or 6% of digital if you don't count DTG, just look at roll to roll is done with pigment. So we're nowhere near kind of cracking that nut, if you like. But. Yes,

Joseph Link
but do you expect the market share of digital to to accelerate in next few years?

Simon Daplyn
And partly because, look, if you've got a perfectly serviceable and working screen printer, why? Why? Why are you investing in new technology when it's still working? But as those machines get older and processes get different, and government legislation changes. What you're unlikely to do if you're looking to progress is to continue to invest in older technology. Right? It makes sense that when you're ready to make that next step or invest it will be in in a digital process to bring that that agility, to allow you to do the shorter runs to be more competitive, to get the on time delivery, you don't have to commit to screens and expensive tooling. You can, you can, you can get up and running. So I think as as the market evolves and as the years go on, the comparative investment in digital will only increase because it because it makes sense with with the way of of the way everything's going in terms of shorter runs, more more focus on sustainability, reducing waste, reducing inventory, and reducing reliance on on like long, long lead time products.

Joseph Link
So what you've just outlined now is one way in which a print service provider could prepare for future challenges, but in terms of an OEM and a consumable provider like yourself, how do you plan to prepare for future challenges?

Simon Daplyn
Really? I mean, we've used the word agility a lot and but it's true, and it's about listening to the market and really understanding customer and market pain points, creating those partnerships that EDRI was talking about, so that we're able to deliver solutions, that our partners know, that they can trust that it's high quality, that it will give you highly reliable products time and time again. I think one of, one of the big challenges with with supply chains is, is making sure that whenever you buy a product you you're sure it's going to work in the same way as the last time you bought it. Because variation in in output is obviously one of the, one of the biggest challenges, but the biggest areas of potential waste, right? If you can't deliver what you did the time before, it's wasting time, it's wasting money, and it's kind of wasting chemicals. So for us, it's about nailing down our processes, which, which, which are pretty spot on at the moment, but then listening to the customers developing in the right areas, understanding how we can benefit them and the market. And look at looks very not that we don't, but sustainability is kind of at the root of every new development that we that we take on. Now I don't think we would start a development if we didn't think there was a benefit from a sustainability point of view, as well as from from a business point of view. So it's it's really looking into that and supporting customers, one of the hardest things. We work very closely with Otis, very closely with print service providers. And sometimes the gap is really understanding where the brands want to go. We know that they all have directives to meet, promises that they've made, that they now need to adapt to meet, and it's about working together with them now to really ensure that that's the case with with the sustainable technology. Absolutely.

Joseph Link
Yeah, it's going to be very interesting to see how things develop over the next five to 10 years. I guess if we have this conversation again, in five years time, we'll be talking about very different trends and very different things, because it evolves so fast. But what advice, props to finish with. What advice would you give to new entrants into the textile market looking to leverage innovation and strategy for growth?

Simon Daplyn
No, I think it's fairly straightforward really. Just listen, listen to your customers, understand what they want, formulate a plan with them, and then commit to the commit to that. I think innovation for the sake of innovation, kind of doesn't work. It's it's about innovating to solve a problem that then generates some value. I think working in silo, I think many of us, over the years have understood that you can generate the best technology in the world, but if there's no kind of market want for it, or if it isn't solving a problem or providing value to a customer in some way then, then it's kind of innovating into a cave, shouting into a cave, and hoping you you get more than the echo back. I think it's, it's really about having that understanding work, working in partnership. And we're, we've been doing that for a while now. So we'll, we're working more and more with some. Straight providers with with companies looking at pre treatment, with the process, trying to understand the software. It's not just about your part that you have to consider we we've got teams of application chemists, of engineers really trying to understand the whole workflow and end to end, and helping us understand how we can generate value for our for our partners, and not just thinking only about the chemistry part, which, of course, is our day to day business, because on its own, it doesn't work. It needs all of that. So looking at where the technology is going, when you print heads are going, and making sure that what you're doing has got some value in the in the mid to long term, as well as well as tomorrow.

Joseph Link
Brilliant. Well, thank you, Simon, thank you edu, for your insights and for taking the time to talk to me today and obviously inform our viewers. I'm sure it's been useful to them. We are actually running a little bit short on time. I'm not sure we have time for any more audience questions. However, I'm sure if it's okay with both of you, they could reach out to you personally via email afterwards, if they've got any any questions related to this discussion. But yeah, other than that, thank you. Have you got any final words before, before we go?

Simon Daplyn
No, thank you, Joe. Yeah, as Joe mentioned, we're very open. We're very willing to take questions. All our contact details will be available after this, and we're more than happy to talk to anyone.

Joseph Link
And just a reminder to our viewers that this will be, this has been recorded, and it will be available to watch back in the next couple of days, and we'll, we'll also feature on w ten.com but thank you everybody for joining us, and goodbye for now.

Edri Baggi
Thank you, everyone. Bye.