For the love of chocolate: Stora Enso launches premium paperboard for confectionery and cosmetics

04 Jun 2020 --- Stora Enso’s innovation hub is bustling with new eco-friendly packaging concepts for the food and personal care sector. Its latest innovation is Performa Light, a renewable and recyclable paperboard for premium folding cartons for chocolate, confectionery and beauty product packaging. Furthermore, Stora Enso has also unveiled a kraftliner dubbed AvantForte enables corrugated packaging producers to expand to the rapidly emerging premium e-commerce sector.

“The packages made of Performa Light stand out on shelves. The impact comes from good visual appearance and print results of Performa Light. It is a premium option in the category of GC2 folding boxboards due to its whiteness, brightness, smoothness, stiffness and strength at a low weight,” Öystein Aksnes, Vice President, Liquid Packaging and Carton Board at Stora Enso, tells PackagingInsights.

Whitened and bright packaging surfaces are particularly advantageous in terms of color printing. “Since Performa Light has high whiteness and brightness as well as smoothness, its print results are sharp and bright. Packaging made of Performa Light creates a premium brand perception of the product inside,” says Aksnes.

AvantForte enables corrugated packaging producers to expand to the rapidly emerging premium e-commerce sector.In terms of packaging durability, Performa Light contains microfibrillated cellulose and specially treated, high-bulk CTMP. It is a unique combination that provides thickness, stiffness and strength at low basis weight, enabling light, durable and firm packaging. It also results in less waste and lower CO2 emissions during transport.

Indeed, environmental sustainability concerns have become a top priority throughout the packaging industry. Addressing this trend, Performa Light also allows for 70 percent reduction of CO2 emissions in production, compared to competitors that use fossil-free energy production. Stora Enso’s patented fiber treatment technology, FiberLight Tec also helps save energy and raw material, according to the company. 

Stora Enso is further communicating its commitment to environmental sustainability by renaming its fluff pulp product line “NaturaFluff,” ceasing to use its previous brand name “Care by Stora Enso.” The change aims to highlight the fluff brand’s sustainability credentials: NaturaFluff is made from Sweden-made northern softwood, pine and spruce and carries both FSC and PEFC certifications.

Corrugated packaging permeates e-commerce packaging
Another new addition to Stora Enso’s line of food-safe packaging is AvantFort, a renewable, recyclable and low-weight kraftliner for packaging in direct contact with food. It specifically targets sensitive food, such as moisty and fatty foods. Likewise, it also aims to cater to the premium e-commerce sector, where visual appearance of packaging is increasingly valued, Henna Pääkkönen-Alvim, Senior Vice President, Containerboard Business Unit at Stora Enso, also tells PackagingInsights.

Stora Enso highlights that the three-layered approach makes AvantForte up to 10 percent stronger than other kraftliners.AvantForte uses patent pending technology called Tri-Ply that equips the product with three fiber layers to maximize its strength, save weight per package and enhance printability. Moreover, Stora Enso highlights that the three-layered approach makes AvantForte up to 10 percent stronger than other kraftliners. This makes for an ideal application for packaging exposed to changing humidity conditions and exposed to long transportation times. 

Packaging must be robust yet flexible to perform well in the e-commerce sector. Stora Enso pegs e-commerce as one of the biggest drivers for containerboard demand growth. Innova Market Insights further named “Packing an e-Punch” as its number three op Packaging Trend for 2020, indicating how the online retailer space has opened up a myriad of opportunities to customize, premiumize and innovate packaging.

Stora Enso is converting a production line at Oulu mill in Finland from woodfree coated paper to kraftliner. The converted board machine will start production in the final quarter of 2020.

By Anni Schleicher