Hello Adrian,
completely agreed. Sino Promise Holdings now owns the chemical plant in China in which the colour chemistry is produced. They can produce at lower costs there because of lower wages, less protection and rights for the workers, less environmental protection (all compared to USA, Europe, Japan etc.). And they have the booming Asian markets in "near distance". They would not have bought the assets from Kodak Alaris if they would not have the plan to continue that business.
Well that is fortunately completely wrong. Even if they would stop production of the colour chemicals, it would have no negative effect on the film revival. The film revival would simply continue at the same speed. Because we don't have any bottleneck or lack in colour chemical production. As producers we have
1. Fuji Hunt.They are running at least four factories worldwide (in the USA, Belgium, Singapore, Japan). So they can produce locally in the markets (shorter transportation distances) and at highest worker protection and environmental standards.
2. Tetenal (Germany).
3. Bellini (Italy)
4. Chugai (Japan)
5. CPAC Asia Imaging (afaik chemistry production is in China, but I am not 100% sure).
6. I know of two other photo chemistry producers who could enter the market if it would be needed.
Those of you in USA, who want to support local production and American workers, and want chemistry produced at highest environmental standards, have this option by using Fuji Hunt (because they are producing for the American markets in the US).
Those of us Europeans who have similar priorities have this option by using Fuji Hunt (produced in Belgium for the European markets), Tetenal (Germany) or Bellini (Italy).
If you are located in Asian countries or in Japan, you have this option by using Fuji Hunt or Chugai.
I have close contacts to several professional labs. And I am talking of long-established (up to 70 years) professional labs here, with several employees, who are offering
- C41, E6 and BW film processing
- often done in dip-and-dunk processing machines
- real photo paper, silver-halide / RA-4 prints
- scans in several options up to high-res scans
- large format prints, including RA-4.
So these guys are extremely experienced, and have also been working a lot for professional photographers and big companies.
Some of them have been extremely loyal Kodak customers for decades. These have all switched to Fuji Hunt chemistry now. Because of
- better quality
- lower costs.
They have also switched to Fujifilm RA-4 papers, because the supply of Kodak papers has become very unreliable.
Concerning the Kodak BW chemistry I am very relaxed. Because I know some replacements by an established photo chemistry manufacturer are in the works. I have also already done some beta-testing of it, and the results have even been better in some parameters compared to the original Kodak chemistry.
Best regards,
Henning