Mondi lights up luxury with Adobe-inspired Pergraphica “Wow Box” and premium grass paper launches

23 Sep 2020 --- Mondi UFP has bolstered its position in the luxury packaging market with a 31 color expansion to its premium graphic paper Pergraphica line in partnership with Adobe Stock, and niche grass paper launches.

Thirty new deep, pale and vibrant colors, plus Infinite Black, are “perfectly suited for the luxury packaging industry,” says Johannes Klumpp, marketing and sales director of Mondi UFP, during the company’s virtual press conference held yesterday. 

Meanwhile, the supplier also unveiled IQ Grass + Packaging, made from grass and renewable wood-based sources that provides foodservice packaging a premium kick. 

While Mondi UFP will focus on distributing both its Pergraphica and IQ Grass + Packaging papers in the European markets, its graphic papers are directed toward a “mainstream” sector. In contrast, the grass-based papers are a “more niche focus segment.”Featured here in Infinite Black, the Perigraphica range is suitable for dry food.

PackagingInsights participated in yesterday’s live conference, inquiring about the R&D challenges of working with grass as a packaging material while tapping into the luxury packaging sector.

The Wow Box: Pergraphica for luxury packaging
Suitable for flexoprinting, the new Pergraphica papers target luxury applications for cosmetics, jewelry, perfumes, champagnes and boutique bags. Mondi showcases the possibilities of its new Pergraphica papers for luxury packaging customers via the “Wow Box.”

The Wow Box contains six individual boxes, each demonstrating different finishing techniques important for key luxury packaging: Hot foil; Laser cutting; Blind embossing; Micro embossing; Gloss foil embossing; and Multi-level embossing.

The boxes also include Braille embossing to meet inclusivity policies, legal requirements and end consumer needs. 

Produced without carbon dyes, Infinite Black is designed for dry food contact. It is optimized for varnishing, embossing and hot-foiling, the latter being “very much in demand” in the luxury packaging sector, says Klumpp. Thirty-one new colors extend Mondi’s Perigraphica portfolio for luxury.

Partnership with Adobe Stock
To further exhibit how colors can come alive on paper, Mondi UFP partnered with Adobe Stock to create a “lookbook.” Titled “Catching Feels,“ the lookbook plays on words of the colloquial term for falling in love, but also tangibly captures the textured finishes of the Pergraphica range.

In the past year and a half, Mondi UFP reached out to creatives, agencies and direct customers to understand “what matters to them“ in terms of printing technologies, front finishing options and final product expectations.

Drawing on the full range of papers in the new Pergraphica portfolio, the emotive and technically challenging imagery in the Catching Feels lookbook features two surface finishes, four printing techniques, six paperweights, ten shades and 53 pages of special inks and finishes. 

A 30/70 combination of grass and fresh fibre gives IQ Grass+ Packaging a “natural look and feel.”The artists featured in the campaign contribute to the Adobe Stock Premium Collection, the premium stock image library, which enhances creative projects and empowers creatives.

Klumpp shared that the collaboration with Adobe Stock was “very inspiring,” while Jordan Barry of Adobe Stock called working with Mondi “a natural integration because [Mondi] has the same vision.”

“It’s too early to understand where the partnership [will continue] because there is so much to explore. We never saw this collaboration going so well. We are keen to explore other angles and looking at how we can improve our focus and engagement with the market,” Barry teases.

IQ Grass+ Packaging
Alternatives to single-use plastic are urgently sought after due to rising calls for more eco-friendly packaging materials throughout the F&B industry.

In this space, Mondi has delivered IQ Grass+ Packaging, which is made from 30 percent grass fiber and 70 percent FSC-certified fresh fiber pulp. The applications for this “niche product” range from premium shopping bags to liners for high-quality corrugated and solid board packaging, notably in foodservice applications. 

IQ Grass+ Packaging is available for order across Europe as of this month (All credits: Studio Beryll).Since the tear strength mainly comes from the wood-based fiber, the grass portion in the hybrid material is limited to 30 percent “for the time being,” Klumpp explains. Moreover, the main focus is on the “touch, feel and optics,” meaning there is no food-grade barrier and the papers are not biodegradable.

Mondi uses grass as one of the fastest-growing plants and can source the material locally at its Neusiedler mill in Austria where IQ Grass+ Packaging is produced. It has a high tear strength compared to typical uncoated fine paper products and a food safety certification for dry/non-fatty foods. 

The new material is available to order across Europe from September 2020. Initial projects have “already been successfully implemented” with customers, the company concludes.

By Anni Schleicher