Pulse — 2026-09-01
The lead
Nazdar named Edward Baiden president and CEO. If you buy ink, that is the item on this week's list that touches your floor first. Nazdar makes both screen and digital inkjet ink, so a change at the top sits across two supply lines that many shops treat as separate budgets and separate stockrooms.
What that means in practice is not yet on the record. The questions for your rep are boring and specific: product lines, lead times, formulation continuity, price letters. Write down what you pay now and how long delivery actually takes. Date the note. If nothing moves by spring, you have lost ten minutes. If something does move, you have a baseline instead of an argument about what last year felt like. Baiden's name is the fact this week. Everything after it is a question you get to ask early.
Signals
Roland DG opens the doors. Roland DG Americas ran a regional open house showing next-generation digital imaging technology. Treat the label with the caution it deserves: "next-generation" is the vendor's word, and an open house is a sales floor with coffee. It is also the cheapest way to put your hands on a machine before it costs you a deposit. Bring your own file. Bring your own substrate. Run the job you currently struggle with, not the one already loaded on the demo, and time it with your phone. Impressions
A month of inkjet, compressed. Nessan Cleary's August 2026 digest rounds up industrial digital printing and inkjet developments in one place. Digests are underrated. One person reading the trade wires for a month and condensing them beats five browser tabs you never close, and Cleary writes for readers who know what a printhead costs. Use it as a scan rather than a citation. If an item touches your next capital line, follow it back to the original announcement before you quote a number to anyone holding a budget. Nessan Cleary
FESPA Africa sells strategy, not stands. FESPA Africa 2026 built its programme around future-proofing wide-format and commercial print production. The framing is the signal. A show leading with strategy sessions is reading an audience that is asking about survival, not shopping for a fifth printer. If you run wide-format, the agenda is a free read on what shops like yours are worried about this year. Stands change annually. Worry lists change more slowly, which makes them the more useful document. ME Printer
Names for your two-year bench. The Graphic Communications Scholarship Foundation honoured its 2026 student awardees, all entering the print industry. Small item, long tail. Every shop that complains about hiring is chasing the same short list of people who chose this trade deliberately, and here that list is, published, with names on it. If you have a press or a finishing bench that needs a body in two years, foundation award lists cost nothing to read. Someone at your competitor read this one already. The Cannata Report
Verdict of the week
Claim: Libiao's RaaS model delivers 30–50 extra robots for peak. Rating: ◐ Partly true
The flexible peak fleet is real and documented, in Libiao's own words: "After the peak, we will come and take away the additional bots." But the "30–50" range appears in no source. Documented fleets are an order of magnitude larger: 80 robots at THG Fulfil, then 430 in Manchester.
R&AN · THG blog · THG press release
Dates
- Sep 27, 2026 — EmpCo: ban on unsubstantiated "eco-friendly"
- Dec 30, 2026 / Jun 30, 2027 — EUDR: due diligence obligations
- Mar 1, 2027 — GOTS 8.0 fully effective
- Dec 31, 2027 — Materials Matter Standard replaces GRS and RCS
- ~2028–2029 (indicative) — Realistic DPP obligation for textiles