Pasi Piiparinen, Metsä Board

Premium Beauty News - To start with, the company has changed its name?

Pasi Piiparinen - We changed our name from M-real to Metsä Board as we are part of Metsä Group, which also introduced a new name earlier this year. ‘Metsä’ means ‘forest’ in Finnish, and identifies that the Group’s operations all centre around forest industries – predominantly using renewable certified wood grown in Nordic countries. With the Group’s new logo – a moose supporting a forest on its antlers – we hope this will remind our customers of the origins of our products and the importance we give to sustainability in our operations.

Premium Beauty News - You have also announced a number of industrial investments with a particular focus on markets outside Europe!

Pasi Piiparinen - Indeed, we have invested for the 2011/2012 period some 120 million euros to increase the production capacity (+ 150 000 tonnes), but also to improve the quality of our products, and this on all of our sites. And it is true that we are planning to give a special focus to other parts of the world like the United States, South America and Asia.

Premium Beauty News - Does this name change affect your areas of business?

Pasi Piiparinen - The name change does also reflect the fact that we are increasingly a paperboard business, and Europe’s leading supplier of folding boxboards and world’s leading supplier of coated white-top kraftliners to the packaging industry.

We continue to serve customers in beautycare, healthcare, consumer goods, food, confectionery and chocolate, that is, any sectors where high quality and attractive appearance are essential. We have developed products that are especially suited for these end-uses.

In beautycare our boards are used for products that include fragrances and perfumes; cosmetics and skin care; hair colouration; and toiletries.

Premium Beauty News - Why are your cartonboards particularly suitable for cosmetics and beautycare?

Pasi Piiparinen - Our lightweight cartonboards are ideal for beautycare and luxury products because they make eye-catching and prestigious boxes that are stiff without adding weight. The strength of fresh forest fibres makes them especially suitable for special effects such as embossing, lamination or die-cutting, as well as protecting the product.

They also have high whiteness and brightness, giving a clean look to unprinted areas. Their coating provides excellent printability, so brand colours and images reproduce accurately. We have just introduced a new triple coating on two of our boards, Carta Elega and Avanta Prima, which provides even better printing results.

Safety is another factor particularly affecting packaging in this market. Fresh forest fibres are naturally pure and clean, and boards made from them also have excellent taint and odour properties.

Premium Beauty News - Hence the great battle between the GC1 and the pure cellulose board will not occur!

Pasi Piiparinen - I wouldn’t raise the question under this angle. You know that we are not operating on the market of pure cellulose, but each one has its own place. For our part, we are confident in the continued development of GC1 in the perfumery and cosmetics segment.

Premium Beauty News - Do you think sustainability is important within the luxury market?

Pasi Piiparinen - Sustainability continues to be very important. Many global brands are giving it very high priority. They are looking at lightweighting and reducing the amount of packaging material, as well as prioritising the use of responsible raw materials and energy.

Using our cartonboards for luxury products does not result in sacrificing sustainability – the two can go hand in hand. We use fresh forest fibres in all our products, a renewable raw material sourced from sustainably managed forests. Our manufacturing meets international environmental standards and we hold chain-of-custody certification for our products.

As well as being liked as a packaging material by consumers, cartons can be re-used and recycled easily.

We have also lightweighted our products, providing the same strength but using fewer natural resources. This means both board and cartons are lighter throughout the supply chain, and in disposal at the end of their life.

We are very open and transparent about our raw materials, our use of energy, and our manufacturing processes. We can trace our wood back to the forest, and provide that information to our customers too.

Premium Beauty News - What is special about the Chromolux?

Pasi Piiparinen - Chromolux is well established as a range with a very high gloss finish, synonymous with luxury products. It includes boards suitable for high quality cartons, and label stock ideal for premium drinks and fragrances. It comes in many different colours, surfaces and grammages, and we have just added six of the most popular Chromolux colours in the heavier 350 g/m2 weight, providing more choice for the packaging of luxury products.

Premium Beauty News - Can you tell us more about your IBP (Integrated Brand Packaging service)?

Pasi Piiparinen - IBP is a service for global brand owners with many benefits, including cost reduction, improved efficiency, flexibility, speed and simplicity. It can start with an analysis of your packaging needs, and add design, print management and supply chain management.

Premium Beauty News - Metsä Board has been making significant investments in its mills and services. How will this help your customers?

Pasi Piiparinen - First, we saw the need to increase the capacity of our mills. Demand for fresh forest fibre paperboards is strong and we can now produce an extra 40,000 tpa of Carta Elega and Avanta Prima, and a further 30,000 tpa of Carta Integra, thanks to the rebuilding of our board machines at two mills. Taking these and other improvements together, we have invested a total of EUR 120M in a programme throughout the 2011-2012 period.

In turn, we saw the market need to produce more sheeted boards and have introduced new sheeting services at Äänekoski in Finland and Gohrsmühle in Germany. And we have opened a new Express Board facility at Gohrsmühle, ideal for orders with short delivery times and for smaller orders.

Premium Beauty News - Are you continuing to invest in improving sustainability?

Pasi Piiparinen - We continue to invest in improving the energy efficiency and sustainability of our manufacturing. We have just completed a new bio-power plant at our Kyro mill, which will help us meet our target of cutting CO2 emissions by 30% across all our operations by 2020 compared to 2009 levels.

It will also result in the halving of the carbon footprint of both Carta Elega and Avanta Prima, both of which are made at Kyro - another good reason for our customers to specify them.

The new biopower plant will replace the use of fossil natural gas with CO2-neutral, discarded wood. This is predominantly bark and other biomass from industrial side streams, as well as logging residual and chips from first thinnings of growing forests. The biopower plant will produce electricity and heat for Metsä Board Kyro, and also provide heating for the neighbouring district of Hämeenkyro. After start-up of the plant, CO2 emissions from the Kyro mill will be reduced by approximately 100,000 tpa, to about a quarter of previous levels.