Design

RPC is to increase its prices by 5% from 1 January 2008 owing to "substantial and unrelenting" rises in input costs.

The rigid plastics packaging group said the action was vital to its continued growth and expansion.

RPC chief executive Ron Marsh said the prices of nearly every component of the group's cost structure had risen over the past 12 months.

"We, therefore, have to take immediate steps to recover these," he said. "Our margins have contracted to a level that we can no longer tolerate."

Despite these increases and difficult trading conditions, RPC reported "a modest profit improvement" of £18.7m, up from £18.4m, and sales up 6.9% to £329.7m in the half-year to 30 September.

Marsh said these results and the acquisition of Mob, the French producer of blow-moulded containers at Moirans en Montagne, confirmed RPC Group's underlying strength, but this could only be maintained if the "essential" price rises were implemented.

The French factory, acquired in November, produces containers of up to 30 litres for detergents, chemicals and food, including a range of UN-approved containers.

The firm will now be known as RPC Emballages Moirans.

RPC paid less than £1m for the business, which reported sales of £8.6m (€12m) in the year to 31 March 2007.