Food products such as – and especially – confectionery and baked goods, have high requirements for their packaging: safety, purity, transportability and brand communication belong to the most important ones. Increasingly, however, consumers are also demanding environmental compatibility. Fresh fibre paperboard can be a good solution in this regard.
A common picture in the supermarket: the shelves are full and every brand tries to draw the consumers’ eyes and convince them with their appearance. Many work with elaborate finishes, but more and more often, there are also products that place their naturalness and sustainability in the foreground – with packaging that reflects the brand essence and clearly stands out in direct comparison to other brands through deliberately restrained designs and choice of alternative materials.
The fact that sustainability has long been on the consumers’ minds is also shown by a study conducted in 2019 for cherry tomatoes as an example, commissioned by the Finnish vegetable cooperative Närpes Grönsaker and Metsä Board. In this study, independent market research company Sense N Insight in Finland surveyed consumers who regularly buy cherry tomatoes. Yet, their responses can also serve as an indication for confectionery and baked goods and illustrate that consumers view paperboard as an innovative, aesthetic and responsible material with high status.
In the overall results, participants in this study even showed a willingness to spend more money on goods packaged in paperboard compared to if they were packaged in plastic. Eye movement analysis also revealed that more participants took note of the paperboard box than the plastic tray. These results point to the conclusion that consumers today are actively seeking sustainable alternatives when shopping.
With fresh fibre paperboard, there already is a great and environmentally compatible alternative on the market in the field of confectionery and baked goods packaging. Depending on the municipal recycling offer, this renewable raw material can be recycled with high eco-efficiency. If the fresh fibre comes from sustainably managed forests, as in Finland, the material achieves a particularly good eco-balance. This is the case, for example, with Metsä Board, a leading European manufacturer of premium fresh fibre paperboard, that is constantly developing itself and its products in terms of sustainability.
The company also offers an alternative for products with high fat content, such as fudge, cookies or cakes. “Especially for this purpose, we have developed a paperboard with dispersion barrier coating which helps to reduce plastic and which does not require fluorochemicals in production”, Bernd Gohlke, Account Director at Metsä Board, explains. “This increases the grease barrier of the paperboard, and the packaging simultaneously remains environmentally friendly and efficient”. In addition, the product is safe for direct food contact and free of optical brighteners. After use, this barrier board can be easily recycled or, if that is not possible, composted. In this regard, MetsäBoard Prime FBB EB has been certified to be both industrially as well as home compostable.
At the same time, brand manufacturers and packaging designers do not have to sacrifice safety, stability and brand communication when using fresh fibre. The material is naturally pure and free from any impurities and has excellent sensory properties. Its stability is also very good as demonstrated, for example, by lightweight board grades that achieve consistent stability at lower basis weights, which saves resources, energy and water, reduces transport weights and reduces waste. “And the high whiteness and smooth surface of Metsä Board fresh fibre board grades also ensure that even elaborate finishes and prints are ideally displayed and the final product stands out on the shelf,” Bernd Gohlke points out.
To continue developing packaging solutions today and in the future, and to meet growing consumption and demand for sustainable packaging, Metsä Board launched its new Excellence Centre last year. In co-creation workshops, which are currently hosted digitally, it offers the opportunity to optimize existing packaging or design completely new packaging solutions. The Excellence Centre combines Metsä Board’s own competencies and extensive know-how in fibre-based solutions with those of various experts and partners such as material suppliers, technology providers, start-ups, universities and research companies.
“In addition, we have a state-of-the-art laboratory with more than 100 different measurement methods and analysis tools, including a virtual store and a CAE (computer-aided engineering) tool to enable sophisticated simulation and analysis of packaging performance,” Bernd Gohlke notes. “We have combined research and development facilities, our packaging design, customer feedback centre and laboratory into one complex so that they can work closely together to optimize performance throughout the packaging lifecycle. In this way, we jointly develop holistically sustainable packaging that also convinces consumers at the POS”.
