Kodak Alaris is the company formed by the Kodak UK pension plan when Eastman Kodak went bankrupt in 2012. That pension plan had one of if not the largest secured claims against the assets of Eastman Kodak at the time of bankruptcy. As a part of the bankruptcy settlement, the Kodak UK pension plan received the colour paper manufacturing business and assets from Eastman Kodak, along with a number of other assets, including the exclusive worldwide marketing rights for Kodak still film, Kodak photochemistry and a number of other photo and non-photo business assets.
By 2012, Eastman Kodak was no longer manufacturing their own photo chemistry - much of it had been contracted out to Tetenal in Germany.
Eastman Kodak continues to manufacture all Kodak film. They market the motion picture films, while Kodak Alaris markets the still film that they order from their manufacturer, Eastman Kodak.
Most of the Kodak Alaris employees are former Eastman Kodak employees - primarily the employees who had been involved in distribution and marketing. Kodak Alaris sold their vastly over-sized colour paper manufacturing plant at Harrow a couple of years after the bankruptcy and now contract with a couple of other sources for that manufacturing - primarily the Carestream plant in Colorado (which itself was initially a result of an Eastman Kodak divestiture to an employee group).
Last year, Tetenal (Kodak Alaris' major supplier of photo chemistry) went into a version of receivership, and stopped production. While it looked for a time like Tetenal would disappear, Tetenal has gone through some major changes, and is now manufacturing some products again. Kodak Alaris continues to have Tetenal manufacture some things for them, in some cases with revised packaging. Other photo chemicals are manufactured for them in the US and in China (colour chemistry).
What you are seeing is the results of massive reductions in scale throughout the industry, which forced Eastman Kodak to divest all of their chemical manufacturing capacity, plus one bankruptcy and one receivership.
As a result of all the changes they've been exposed to, Kodak Alaris has had to make some changes in product and, not surprisingly, they've run into some unexpected problems with things like packaging and supplier inconsistencies. In addition, in these last several months, Covid 19 has resulted in massive supply disruptions. They've been responsive to problems, but they aren't big enough to bring about solutions immediately.
Kodak chemicals still exist. So many more no longer do so.
Even Ilford chemicals nearly disappeared - they appear to all be manufactured by Tetenal.
It is a tiny market now. With the hugely diminished size and resources of those suppliers who remain, I don't think we can expect to see the benefits of what used to be huge parties with massive resources.
