Pasi Piiparinen, Head of Metsä Board Paperboard

Metsä Board, Europe’s leading producer of fresh forest fibre cartonboards, recently made a series of enhancements to its Avanta Prima, Simcote and Carta Elega folding boxboards. These changes are following technical improvements made at its mills during the 2011-2012 investment programme.

Lighter and whiter

We are responding to customer needs by making our world class boards even more fit-for-purpose,” says Pasi Piiparinen, Head of Metsä Board Paperboard. “Developments include better yield, optimised shades and improved surfaces, according to the requirements of each end-use.

According to Metsä Board, the product enhancements improve the suitability of each cartonboard in the range for a particular packaging end-use such as food; beautycare; healthcare; or luxury packaging and graphics applications.

Thus Metsä Board has improved the bulk of its Avanta Prima cartonboard range, meaning a lighter weight can be specified whilst maintaining the same thickness and stiffness. As a result Metsä Board has further light-weighted grammages across the range. Also, this range - which has been developed to meet the requirements of the healthcare market - has been optimised to allow for 2D data matrix coding. Its shade has also been optimised to enhance visual whiteness.

Similarly, the shade of Carta Elega has been optimised to enhance its visual whiteness – an important characteristic in the beautycare market.

Eventually, the Simcote range, more specifically designed for food packaging, now has improved bulk, thus allowing to light-weight all the grammages across the range, while maintaining the same thickness and stiffness.

Our customers will be able to utilise an even lighter weight board, achieving the same or even better performance in a finished carton,” adds Pasi Piiparinen. “Using a lighter weight board also offers sustainability benefits, as less raw material is used, less weight carried throughout the value chain and less waste is generated.

Metsä Board says the enhanced board range can be ordered starting mid-May, with availability from June 2013.