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A very useful and informative article, and I agree wholeheartedly with almost everything I read. Indeed, I spoke recently with someone who personally inspected the Chinese molecular sieve manufacturing facility in question, and was horrified by the imprecise and crude production methods employed. However I would like to respond if I may?

Grace Davison are absolutely correct to warn people to look beyond the price, and be sure they are getting top quality adsorption capacity by carrying out simple Delta-w and Delta-t testing as a minimum.

However...there’s always a however..... the article does mislead, in suggesting that a low price automatically means low quality. That would sound suspiciously like scaremongering in an attempt to justify inflated pricing. And that wouldn’t do at all!

It’s a fact that molecular sieves are generally sold in the UK at prices considerably higher than elsewhere in Europe and many other countries around the world. We Brits are taken as a soft touch: It’s the car thing all over again. Buy in the UK and you pay a damn sight more than in the rest of Europe. It’s why people cross the channel to buy their beer, service their cars and generally get more for their money.

There are plenty of reasons why a product’s price can be low without being detrimental in any way to the quality: Identical factories producing identical products from identical raw material sources could produce identical quality from a low-wage country like, say, Korea as opposed to a high-wage society like Germany. If the advantages of lower cost labour from the Korean facility are passed on to the I G Manufacturer, he will indeed be receiving an equally high quality product at a lower price.

The same applies to international monetary exchange rates. Some of us pass on the benefits of a strong Pound rather than hoarding them. Again this means a lower price for the end user, without compromising product quality in any way.

Then there’s the willingness of some vendors to operate with smaller margins than others. And others that have cut back on expensive sales reps with their associated cars and expense accounts, to sink prices further. All without cutting quality in any way, shape or form.

So yes, generally a great article, congratulations, it makes some very important points. But let’s not forget that price and competitiveness are also important factors, and a low price does not necessarily mean low quality. No more than a high price is any guarantee of better quality.

Ashton Industrial pursues a policy of keenest possible pricing despite specialising in the highest quality materials. We have proved over the past 12 years that top quality and low prices can indeed go consistantly hand-in-hand. And No, we don’t sell Chinese molecular sieve.