Consumables
Stora Enso launches Performa Bright
Wednesday 03. February 2010 - Stora Enso enters the New Year with a revised carton board offering and new product launches. At the ProSweets 2010 exhibition, the company is introducing Performa Bright, a new option for chocolate and confectionery packaging. Stora Enso is also presenting new Ensocoat, with enhanced printability for high-end packaging, and the multilayer kraft back board CKB that offers significant yield improvement.
“Consumers are the initial driving force for packaging development. Catching their eye at the point of sale and convincing them of the quality and sustainability of a product are top of the agenda,” says Wilfried Schmahl, Sales Director at Stora Enso Carton Board. He introduced the carton board selection at Stora Enso’s chocolate packaging seminar held in conjunction with the ProSweets 2010 exhibition.
“Our response to market preferences is to increasingly communicate the benefits of paperboard as a renewable, climate-friendly and sustainable packaging material but we also have to be able to develop our products and to the way in which we support our customers and partners in their efforts to create innovations,” says Schmahl. “I’m pleased to announce that we have just completed major product-development projects at our Nordic board mills and can now introduce several novelties and improvements.”
Chocolate brands rely on Performa
The Performa brand dominates Stora Enso’s volumes sold for chocolate and confectionery packaging, with products such as Performa White, Performa Natura and Performa Alto. “Now we are pleased to introduce Performa Bright from our Fors Mill as the newcomer in our Performa board family. The new board highlights our expertise in chemi-thermomechnical pulp, which allows us to offer these odour and taint neutral boards for packaging sensitive confectionery, chocolate and sweets. Performa Bright has a white but uncoated reverse side as demanded for high-class chocolate boxes to enhance the brand image and emotional attraction,” says Schmahl.
As a guarantee of high quality and odor and taint neutrality, Stora Enso has set the market’s most stringent tolerances in the Robinson test for its boards. “Performa Bright joins the product family which has the lowest Robinson test and migration level in the market. It is suitable for packaging fine sweets that require long-time odour and neutrality. Still it meets the market’s cost-efficiency demands,” says Schmahl. Performa board grades are also used for packaging cosmetics, pharmaceuticals and food. Due to the use of chemi-thermomechanical pulp (CTMP) in the middle layer, these boards offer high bulk and stiffness without compromising purity and print quality.
New Ensocoat for the high end
Through its new Ensocoat, Stora Enso wants to serve the high-end packaging segment. The finest chocolate boxes are typically packed with special effects such as embossing and hot-foil stamping. “As a pure solid bleached sulphate board, Ensocoat offers the finest surface and mechanical properties for such applications. We recently changed the Ensocoat recipe and its optical properties have been improved, offering great print results,” says Ari Tanninen, Market Support Manager, Stora Enso Carton Board, Imatra Mills, Finland.
Before the new Ensocoat launch, several trial runs were made on the board machine and printing trials were carried out with leading package manufacturers to ensure that Ensocoat quality is consistent from batch to batch and that the board performs cleanly in the most demanding applications. Besides technical development, Stora Enso is developing its brand portfolio by introducing Ensocoat 2S as a replacement for the former Ensogloss.
More packages from less
With Stora Enso CKB board, the focus has been how to make more from less. This strong multilayer kraft back board from Stora Enso Skoghall mill, Sweden, will be up to 20 g/m2 lighter than before. Yet its stiffness will be as high as ever. Thanks to new state-of-the-art technology on the board machine, the new lean CKB enables producing more packages per tonne of paperboard.
In addition to the Ensocoat, Performa and CKB brands, Stora Enso’s carton board selection includes Tambrite folding boxboard and the Triplex family of WLC boards.