Packaging is the ultimate vehicle for design: industrial, graphic, and typographic design are all put to the test to create an impression so meaningful that it converts currency into consumerism. This ...
Confectionery consumers are longing for a treat and expecting a touch of luxury, holding true even in today’s trying times. As demonstrated at ProSweets by M-real, one of the world’s leading primary fiber paperboard producers, packaging plays a major role in meeting these requirements. With tempting design, packaging sends out signals to attract consumers, yet at the same time it has to be sustainable, cost-efficient and functional. Additional vital requirements for confectionery packaging are food safety as well as taste and odor neutrality, making innovative cartonboards with high-tech qualities the obvious choice.
M-real’s board grades, Carta Solida and Simcote, are designed to meet the high requirements of demanding food products. These primary fiber grades are produced using renewable raw materials from sustainably managed forests and can be recycled. Production is subject to the most stringent environmental and safety standards. “All M-real production plants are ISO 22000 certified,” explains Nina Happonen, manager environment and sustainability, M-real Consumer Packaging.
M-real’s range of packaging boards has undergone continuous development. They have been light weighted so that they now offer the same properties of stiffness and bulk as heavier conventional grades but in lower basis weights. This means they can be specified for confectionery packaging without losing a quality feel, but result in cost savings and benefits to the environment through lighter transport weights and less waste at the end of their lifecycle.
Lightweighting has been achieved by investment in improved manufacturing processes, such as at the Simpele mill where Simcote is made. M-real is also a forerunner in the development of a new type of pulp, bleached chemi-thermo-mechanical pulp (BCTMP), that combines light weight with high purity in M-real’s Carta Solida.
M-Real also recently produced Marabou Chocolate multipacks that combine carta solida with corrugated board for printability with strength. Giant multipacks of Marabou Chocolate bars, designed to be used as prizes in theme parks, posed a challenge for if the packs were to reproduce the look of standard size wrappers. A folding boxboard on its own would not be strong enough to protect all twenty 100g bars in the pack, and a corrugated liner would not possess all the required printing qualities.
The solution found by converters Smurfit Kappa Lithopac in Sweden was to litho-laminate M-real’s Carta Solida folding boxboard onto a corrugated board after offset printing. Carta Solida has the high whiteness and gloss to reproduce brand colors and images accurately, and combines high bulk with a light weight. It is available in sheets, allowing for flexibility in print runs, and Carta Solida’s excellent creasability makes it ideal for the multipack.
Carta Solida is a fully coated bleached paperboard with a white back, one of M-real’s range of virgin-fiber based cartonboards. It is recommended for graphics and high-quality packaging, and available in 185-320 gsm (114-197 lbs/3000sf or 10pt – 22pt). For more, visit www.m-real.com.
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