Dear All,
I have read through this thread :
Firstly : NO I cannot imagine a world without Tri-X, from the outset, its a great film, always was, still is, but I am partisan obviously so I love HP5+ more...which I do.
Second : KODAK has a history of photo manufacturing second to none, with amazing technical developments and some great people, some of them I have had the pleasure to meet, eg people like Ron Mowrey.
In the thread there were lots of 'what ifs' and then references to ourselves.
So a few answers... yes... we could make the whole world demand for monochrome, paper and film.. our coating machine is much smaller than one of KODAKs, but it is still very, very, big 400m long ( in two 200m lengths folded back on itself and it of course coats on all substrates and so is very flexible but it can still coat at 200m2 a minute ( thats about 3,500 36 exposure films each minute if you are interested ).
Raw materials : Yes, the photo industry has undergone huge change, lots of industries have and you have to adapt, chemicals are not usually an issue, we have developed our own in house Kilo Lab where we can synthesise or manufacture the chemicals ( down to Kilo quantities, as the name suggests ) that we need but can no longer source in the quantity required or the price we desire, its why we have R&D and why we have Chemistry PHD's to develop, test, approve or manufacture these products.
Yes, you face challenges like cassettes, you solve it by purchasing the machines and making your own and now we make better cassettes than we were getting before ( so less waste etc ).
But some of the comments were a bit off the mark such as the what if's about KODAK, from a USA perspective obviously KODAK was a giant and an Icon ( and deservedly so ) and obviously in Colour products a laviathon, but in the much smaller world of monochrome, and specifically mono paper we outsold KODAK many times over, even in the heydays of the 80's and 90's and yes, even in the USA, and so the premise that we bought raw materials 'on the back of' KODAK etc, was a little wide of the mark, although we undoubtedly did, and do source from the same organisations.
But lets look at our own Marketing philosophy, photography and the artisanship of printing requiries choices for photographers and printers, we endeavour to offer choices in our own offerings and we make more mono products and have a range wider than virtually all the other mono manufacturers put together, we rejoice in the fact other makers are still supplying, it helps ensure the world of silver based photography goes on...
Hence...a world without Tri-X would be a place we would not like.
Simon : ILFORD Photo / HARMAN technology Limited