ADOX chemistry security of supply

[pentaxuser]

Nothing to do with ADOX but if as Mirko says Ilford has been without a supplier of its chemistry since Tetenal ceased production last November then it raises worrying uncertainty about what Ilford has managed to do to re-establish its chemical supplies

Clearly Mirko can't answer that question but unless there is chemical capacity out there to take the place of Tetenal then we may be in dire straits

As it was a good number of posts ago here's what Mirko said about the current situation:

"Tetenal manufactured all chemicals for Ilford, Kodak and other brands at least for Europe. Their manufacturing was ceased in November. This means here in Europe everyone who has bought from Tetenal before is currently selling from stock until new manufacturing sources have been found. I am not telling anything less or anything more. This means I am also not specualating about future availability of certain brands in certain markets. "

I have just seen Steven Lee''s post but had not before I posted. He sums up what needs to be all of our serious concern

pentaxuser

 

[removedacct2]

As it was a good number of posts ago here's what Mirko said about the current situation:

"Tetenal manufactured all chemicals for Ilford, Kodak and other brands at least for Europe. Their manufacturing was ceased in November. This means here in Europe everyone who has bought from Tetenal before is currently selling from stock until new manufacturing sources have been found. I am not telling anything less or anything more. This means I am also not specualating about future availability of certain brands in certain markets. "

I have just seen Steven Lee''s post but had not before I posted. He sums up what needs to be all of our serious concern

yes just few comments earlier, in this post:
https://www.photrio.com/forum/threads/adox-chemistry-security-of-supply.198778/post-2673969

that's why I commented. My phrasing in english was maybe not clear, so more simply said (I hope): in the O.P. Adox guys tells he wants to clear a rumour about reagents supply. Nice, but then some more comments after, at his comment you point to, I jumped.

my former remark was twofold: one is relatively to C41 but, and hence the other point, Adox does only BW chemistry. So I am very puzzled to learn that did rely in the past on Tetenal/Norderstedt tandem.

which brings this:

I don't think it's this easy: photochemistry manufacturers don't simply buy large quantity of chemicals from Sigma-Aldrich, Fischer and the likes. If they would do it, a 1 liter developer bottle would cost you 80£, 80$ or 80€ or whatever...

&

it was stated fairly clearly that much of the raw chemistry comes from Asia, and that Tetenal mostly served as a catalyst (no pun intended) for maintaining the import channels of that chemistry. In the present situation, Adox et al need to directly source some stuff from Asia or develop alternative channels for this.

so I learn that:
1) reagents for photo chemistry isn't sourced from Europe (!)
2) industrial quantities are more expensive than hobbyist ones. Very well, I am glad to learn, yet I am puzzled because here is what I get on Merck/Sigma-Aldrich for metol ie. 4-(Methylamino)phenol hemisulfate if I buy in Norway:
https://www.sigmaaldrich.com/NO/en/...age=30&sort=relevance&term=genol&type=product
250g : 731 kr
1 kg: 2010 kr
hydroquinone 1 kg: ~1000kr:
https://www.sigmaaldrich.com/NO/en/substance/hydroquinone11011123319

earlier today I mixed 1 liter of Gevaert G-201, it has 1,5g metol, and 1 liter Kodak D-19, 2 g metol. Other reagent is hydroquinone, 6g and 8g respectively, there's the potassium bromide 2g and 5g, and the sodium carbonate is from the box of "krystallsoda" sold at the supermarket.

so all together a liter of developer doesn't cost me 80$/€ .. 80€ is the price of 250g of metol.

 

[MattKing]

Essentially we're being told that both Ilford and Kodak chemistry is no longer manufactured.

More accurately, one of the major former manufacturing sources for the photo-chemicals branded that way is no longer available. Which means disruption at the very least.
The part that is particularly confusing is that Tetenal was, at least in the EU/UK, formerly known even more as a distributor than as a manufacturer, and the disruption that resulted from the failure of their distribution business is/was the initial, primary reason that many items disappeared from store "shelves".

 

[mshchem]

US customers do not pay VAT if we ship to the US. If a US citizen buys from us in our store we have to charge him VAT due to the lack of proof of export for the german authorities. He can -however- claim back the taxes by handing us in the stamped invoice (customs stamp on exit). Our webhop is quite straightforeward about this. The international shop shows both prices with and without VAT and depending on your location VAT is applied at checkout or not (different rates within Europe btw.)

I apologize, I haven't been at your website for a while. Of course you have prices listed with and without VAT. My mistake!

 

[koraks]

so I learn that:

I can take no responsibility for your misunderstanding, whether deliberate or not. Sorry I can't help you. I'll keep it at that I don't subscribe to your analysis because it has fundamental flaws.

 

[Disconnekt]

Don't know if anybody saw, but Tetenal UK did rebrand the name to Dupli:

Effective From March 2023, Tetenal Uk Is Rebranding As Dupli. | Dupli

Our years of working with household names has given us invaluable expertise on big projects, but we’re equally as comfortable helping small operations and people who just love the craft of photography. And now, we’re confident th

dupli.co.uk

If anything, anyone has questions for them, just email them & see what they say.

 

[halfaman]

so I learn that:
1) reagents for photo chemistry isn't sourced from Europe (!)

As far as I know all color developers (CD-1, CD-2, CD-3, CD-4 and more with no photographic use) are produced in Asia, China most likely, since quite some decades due to cost. C-41, RA-4 or ECN-2 are industrial processes with constant pressure on price and, like many other things, went "East" in order to satisfy that demand. Business point of european or american color chemistry brands is that they own a recipe/formula, but raw components are mostly outsourced and even formula preparation.

 

[Leemet Samel]

Regarding chemistry, wouldn't that be an opportunity for ADOX (or whoever) to scale up production to fill the possible gap in market and maybe even synthesise some of the chemicals for redundancy?

At the moment sourcing raw chemicals from China is cheaper, but from my experience, the quality has been so-so with some manufacturers (mislabelled chemicals, wrong batch numbers, etc.) and the pandemic showed how unreliable supply can be, with Shanghai port being closed for several months. That's why production of fine chemicals (eg. starting materials or intermediates for active pharmaceutical ingredients) is slowly moving back to Europe.

 

[koraks]

and maybe even synthesise some of the chemicals for redundancy?

There's a massive difference between confectioning compounded materials like developers, and synthesizing raw chemistry. While the activities have some aspects in common, the required technological knowledge base and industrial infrastructure are totally different.

 

[removedacct2]

I can take no responsibility for your misunderstanding, whether deliberate or not. Sorry I can't help you. I'll keep it at that I don't subscribe to your analysis because it has fundamental flaws.

?
I am not asking for help thank you. Nor analysing anything, just pointing to couple fuzzy points.
I am an idiot or a liar, or both an idiot liar. Very well, but it brings nothing factual to the topic.

what I learnt from your former comment and @Tsubasa one is that buying large quantities of reagents like ADOX needs to do in order to manufacture their chemistry costs more proportionally than for a hobbyist to buy a small amount like 100g. And that, ADOX or/and others like Tetenal they are looking at Asia to source chemicals.
I documented with links on Sigma-Aldrich/Merck that 1 kg metol costs me ~2000kr and 1 kg hydroquinone ~1000 kr, one liter of MQ developer contains few grams of each. There's the potassium bromide, the sulfite, the carbonate. All together one liter isn´t in the 80 €/$/£ as @Tsubasa suggested, very far from it.
I provided the links, here a screenshot for metol:

Merck/Sigma-Aldrich is a main chemical industry in Germany and Europe.

Of course it is very possible that their rates for big quantities required by ADOX are still significantly more expensive than buying it from Asia, which means I guess from China or India.


what was Norderstedter Chemie Gmbh doing? they produced themselves raw chemicals or imported from China?
As a end user it makes no difference, as Mirko/ADOX here was writing in the start, then there's indeed no issue at all, it's a non-issue. There was some rumor and Mirko/ADOX clears it. Good.
But in a further comment he gets into availability issue for other manufacturers than ADOX or the reselling business of Tetenal. This is were I am puzzled.

The other aspect of the topic is that closure of Norderstedter Chemie Gmbh has little impact anyway on BW chemistry, but more on C41, because in the last 10-15 years of increasing interest for film photography the Tetenal kit was in Europe the main one. And maybe Norderstedt was also providing the Digibase/Compard kits (if not, then who?)

By the way, ready to use BW chemistry I buy is HC-110, and FOMA developers, fix, film and paper. Rest I mix myself. FOMA being Czech they are not affected by the existential problem affecting the savvy witty deutschen ?

 

[ADOX Fotoimpex]

Regarding chemistry, wouldn't that be an opportunity for ADOX (or whoever) to scale up production to fill the possible gap in market and maybe even synthesise some of the chemicals for redundancy?

At the moment sourcing raw chemicals from China is cheaper, but from my experience, the quality has been so-so with some manufacturers (mislabelled chemicals, wrong batch numbers, etc.) and the pandemic showed how unreliable supply can be, with Shanghai port being closed for several months. That's why production of fine chemicals (eg. starting materials or intermediates for active pharmaceutical ingredients) is slowly moving back to Europe.

We cannot scale up in a few weeks to reach the size of former Tetenal.

And yes, thats exactly what I ment with supply chain issues. You have to control the quality, purity and import enough. But repatronazing this is also not a solution. In Europe you would pay on the average 5-10 times more to manufacture certain compounds. As long as others are still importing form Asia (and the big resellers like Merck and Sigma Aldrich do exactly this) you have to produce at comparable costs of your competitors or you simply don´t sell anything. We alreday went pretty borderline with our substitution of borates and other not so health increasing ingredients. Our raw chemical costs are more than twice than the "old" recipes. But with a smart sourcing we managed to keep the price in line with the heritage formulations.

 

[mshchem]

Regulatory compliance is a huge issue, especially in Europe. Blending relatively benign chemicals is one thing, reacting and manufacturing raw chemicals is another thing.

 

[koraks]

what I learnt from your former comment and @Tsubasa one is that buying large quantities of reagents like ADOX needs to do in order to manufacture their chemistry costs more proportionally than for a hobbyist to buy a small amount like 100g.

That's not what I said, or tried to convey. I stated that getting chemistry at a small scale for a hobby project is different from obtaining larger quantities for a professional operation. Consider, for instance:
* As an amateur, if you momentarily can't source something, try again next month. If you're ADOX, it means a supply interruption and loss of revenues. The requirements on a reliable supply are greater.
* As an amateur, if there are small fluctuations in certain specifications, you're unlikely to notice. If you're ADOX, there's bound to be a 'difficult' customer somewhere who notices, and you can't really afford having to recall a batch of chemistry because of a fluctuation that's irrelevant to 95% of the user base. So the requirements on consistency of quality are greater.
* As an amateur, you can get some stuff off of eBay and not worry too much about taxes, safety regulations etc. If you're ADOX, you have to work by the book, because you can't afford to go face down in the mud in a tax audit or safety regulations audit - let alone an actual accident happening that's attributable to lack of adherence to regulations.
* As an amateur, it's great if you can mix your developer for let's say 25% or 50% of the cost price in materials of what ADOX retails for. Way cheap! If you're a business with the associated cost of capital, employees running around and investments to be done in innovation, product line extensions etc, you need to actually think about margins.

Etc. etc. There are dozens of reasons why what may work fine for you in your home lab setting just isn't feasible for a commercial operation. It's not just about cost.

But in a further comment he gets into availability issue for other manufacturers than ADOX or the reselling business of Tetenal. This is were I am puzzled.

So reformulate your puzzlement into a clear question and ask Adox. My statement remains that all the speculation, second-guessing and armchair philosophy isn't going to get you any firm answers. Sure, we could collectively build a bit more of an understanding of the situation if we combined all of our knowledge and experience, but the way you've responded thus far to interactions in this thread makes me feel that this isn't really your cup of tea. Fine by me, but it begs the question why you'd bother posting on a forum in the first place...

 

[Steven Lee]

@ADOX Fotoimpex Always love reading your insights on how the industry operates. Putting your manufacturing capacity aside for a second, let me ask you a hypothetical question: would you consider making C-41 chemistry at some point? I am asking because B&W has a solid "Plan B" for most users, which is making our own from raw ingredients. But C-41 is way more involved and looks like our choices are rapidly shrinking, soon to be limited only to 1L blix kits.

 

[ADOX Fotoimpex]

@ADOX Fotoimpex Always love reading your insights on how the industry operates. Putting your manufacturing capacity aside for a second, let me ask you a hypothetical question: would you consider making C-41 chemistry at some point? I am asking because B&W has a solid "Plan B" for most users, which is making our own from raw ingredients. But C-41 is way more involved and looks like our choices are rapidly shrinking, soon to be limited only to 1L blix kits.

Yes we are considering this. If the scenario of a Plan B arises we will also be able to do this for sure. If we could compete with Fuji Hunt at present is a different question to which I do not have a yes. Most likely we are concentrating on niches for the near future. For example powder products or something else Fuji does not offer.

 

[Anon Ymous]

@ADOX Fotoimpex Hi, would you consider supplying raw chemicals?

 

[JPD]

Kudos to Adox for doing their best.

The EU, and Europe and the West in general, should be more careful with regulations and become more independent. We should have learned that by now. Natural disasters, wars and sanctions happen, but we still need chemicals and electronic components.

 

[Ivo Stunga]

The EU, and Europe and the West in general, should be more careful with regulations and become more independent.

Agreed! It's silly to put all eggs in one basket.

 

[koraks]

I agree. But on that note, let's keep that train of thought where it is before it becomes more political

 

[pentaxuser]

As a result of the discussion that followed the ADOX announcement and a reference to the Ilford chemistry situation, I wrote to Ilford yesterday and received the following reply today :

"Whilst we are not at liberty to discuss the particulars of our business, we can assure you that we have good stock of our chemistry and supply continues."

pentaxuser

 

[pentaxuser]

This reply is somewhat vague. There are stores where Ilford chemistry is now unavailable, so the disruption HAS an effect.

I can find only 4 items currently out of stock on the Ilford website All except Hypam Fixer are connected to machine lab processing so there may be an issue with machine lab processing chemicals that may or may not have anything to do with what you assume to be a general problem with Ilford chemicals

The issue with the source you mention may equally be connected to supply to that source for possibly several reasons amongst which might be that source itself such as its ordering policy

If you are simply now saying that the Tetenal disruption may have caused a problem somewhere then I cannot say you are wrong but I am only pointing out that the current situation with Ilford chemistry appears to be minimal and that the Ilford statement, unless it is largely a lie, suggests that even after nearly 6 months Ilford says its stock is good and supply continues

So what might Ilford mean by "supply continues"?
1. Does it mean that it is still running down its stocks, having still not been able to secure any replacement source in which case its stocks and its supply to its customers will eventually cease and that's the end of Ilford chemistry and possibly Ilford itself?
2. Does it mean that it is still running down its stocks but has now found a replacement source and that source will replace Tetenal-produced Ilford products over the next few months at a rate that will prevent Ilford running out of stock so customers will notice very little or no problems?

3. It now has a replacement source that has already ensured that its replacement level is even now at the former Tetenal level of production?

Those as I see it are the 3 possible meanings of supply. So which one is correct? Well, option one is the doomsday scenario and somehow I cannot see this as being likely but others may see it differently. It all seems to depend on how likely any one person thinks that doom and gloom is always the most probable outcome when anything "goes wrong" or even starts to "go wrong"

Options 2 and 3 represent a continuation of supply and depending on lford stocks, neither may pose any problem at all or may in the case of some chemicals pose a temporary problem in that customers might have to switch to another chemical for a period

Each of us will believe what we think the evidence points to, be that limited evidence or otherwise

pentaxuser

 

[Roger Cole]

This reply is somewhat vague. There are stores where Ilford chemistry is now unavailable, so the disruption HAS an effect.

Doesn't seem vague to me at all. There can be all kinds of reasons unrelated to Ilford/Harman itself (or themselves, I suppose, being a UK company) why certain retail suppliers may be out of something, most basically being they simply sold all they had and either haven't ordered more or it's ordered but not yet arrived, which doesn't at all necessarily mean a problem at Ilford.

 

[Roger Cole]

Number 3 seems to me the only possible way to read their statement. That's how I took it.

 

[Sal Santamaura]

Number 3 seems to me the only possible way to read their statement. That's how I took it.

And I find number four (none of the above) to be most likely.

 

[koraks]

And I find number four (none of the above) to be most likely.

Perhaps something along the lines of "were never that reliant on Tetenal in the first place". Just guessing - I really don't know!