Greetings from PACOM! It's been a long time since I...er, we, reached out to you via this newsletter. And wouldn't you know it, this coincides quite nicely with how much busier things have been at PACOM throughout the previous year. As we have now entered 2026, we wanted to revisit the updates which we had been sending for several years and think about ways to make it a more consistent endeavor.

I will honestly admit that being busier had a part in the newsletter's abrupt hiatus, but I think also a part of it was that after writing at a steady pace for over 3 years (since the pandemic--that also feels like a long time ago, no?), I felt it was starting to get formulaic and had lost some of what had made it unique. Of course, during the hiatus, the rise of AI script-writing has put people like me in danger of losing their jobs; but after hearing from several of you when we met face to face at various events, I feel that using AI to power out a script for the newsletter really defeats the purpose. I've seen plenty of AI writing, and can usually tell when it is AI (although I will give credit where credit is due and say that it has gotten steadily harder to immediately identify something as AI-written). I don't want that to happen to this little slice of work that I've made, and so you have my word that no AI will be used for this letter. Maybe this is very Luddite of me (or Butlerian, for fans of a certain sci-fi IP), but that's the decision I've made.

But enough preamble. In this edition, I'll showcase a bit of what PACOM has done over the past year, as well as some hot-button issues which had many of you asking us for answers.

Showcases

As has been standard since the pandemic receded somewhat, PACOM was busy at various international book fairs. Whether it be in London, Bologna or Frankfurt, we were able to connect with so many of you, as well as meet people and companies who we are now working on strengthening our partnership with.

But there was an additional chapter to this in 2025. PACOM partnered with COEX to showcase its talents at the Sourcing Market Festival 2025 in Seoul, complete with a......more unconventional booth to boot. I think it's best just to show you.

It was a B2C event where we showcased not only PACOM's traditional commercial printing expertise, but also some of the other projects we'd been working on over the past year, like an edge-printed diorama, or customized PACOM-branded stickers, or stationery goods in collaboration with Korean indie artists.

It was a foray into more unfamiliar territory, and we're working on following up with the many folks who stopped by to talk with us, as well as strengthening our partnership with COEX. Perhaps next year will bring even more opportunities outside of our usual comfort zone!

Visits

Over the course of the previous year, many of you took the time to visit our facility and talk both business and life. I think I've said this probably ad nauseam at this point, but we are always glad to have our partners and friends visit us. Human contact and face-to-face discussion is an immutable part of our business, and our doors are (almost) always open!

In 2025, we've had visitors from the US, Europe, Hong Kong and Japan to name a few places--we always strive to have a global base, and we're working on that.

Here's a photo of when our friends from Hong Kong were in town--all 30 of them!

If you're around the area in 2026, don't hesitate to reach out--we'd love it if you let us know!

The Regulation That Wasn't

The second half of this year (and for some, the first half) had a lot of people asking us about a specific topic: what are we doing about EUDR?

For those of you whom it didn't apply to, a quick summary is that the EU, in its quest for sustainability and preventing deforestation, voted to implement regulation that would require all printed products entering the EU market to have traceability on a geographical coordinate level, and to essentially certify that all such products were created without causing additional deforestation beyond certain areas.

If that sounds confusing, good, because that means we are not alone.

Essentially, the rules were originally scheduled to be implemented right now, but for a variety of reasons, rumblings about a potential implementation delay began happening around November, and it became official in mid-December that the EUDR would 1) be delayed one year, and 2) would exclude print products from the regulation.

While it does mean that a lot of work that went into preparing for compliance is for nought, it does make it a lot easier on our end to simply continue to do what we do and create quality print products without worrying about additional red tape. Still, it was a learning experience for us and I think for several of you as well!

For more information about the entire ordeal, please refer to these sources:

https://www.consilium.europa.eu/en/press/press-releases/2025/12/18/deforestation-council-signs-off-targeted-revision-to-simplify-and-postpone-the-regulation/

https://osapiens.com/blog/eudr-update-december-2025/

https://www.esgtoday.com/eu-parliament-council-agree-to-simplify-delay-supply-chain-deforestation-law/

https://www.publishers.org.uk/amended-eudr-regulation-to-exclude-books/

Future

I will be making it one of my projects to get this newsletter back out on a regular basis, and hopefully keep PACOM in your minds as we proceed through 2026. I'll keep in touch.

For all, Happy Belated New Year! May your future be filled with happiness, warmth and good fortune.