Everything’s Going Up—Including Machine Prices

Plastics machinery is a highly competitive business, and—apart from the usual haggling and negotiating—suppliers are always looking for ways to make their products more affordable. But we’re in a period of sudden inflation in the cost of pretty much everything—food, fuel, raw materials of all sorts. A lot of that can be attribute to COVID-induced snarls in supply chains, as well as almost universal shortages of personnel.

The latest upshot of all that is that it’s not just the pellets that go into your processing machines whose prices are elevated—sticker prices on the machines themselves are hitting the “Up” button as well. The first public acknowledgement of that to reach my desk was an announcement this past week that PET bottle-making equipment supplier Sidel has implemented a “commodity-induced price adjustment” on its stretch-blow molding machines by an average of 5% effective Sept. 6.

The company said, “The global pandemic has [led] to a significant price increase and shortage of raw materials and components used in packaging equipment.” The company emphasized particularly the significant global shortage of electronic microchips. It also noted that the increase in costs of raw materials “is not expected to recover in the foreseeable future.” And, “Deficiency of raw materials and components may impact equipment delivery time as well.”

Like I said, this is the first such announcement I’ve seen. Brace yourself for more of the same—whether in public or private communications—from other machine builders.