For snacks such as doughnuts, plastic is traditionally used in the packaging to keep the product intact and safe. However, the reduction of plastic is a hot topic in the food industry. As an alternative, Metsä Board offers a fully coated, lightweight virgin fibre paperboard with a dispersion barrier coating that provides medium protection against grease and moisture and can be recycled in the paper or board waste stream.
Hélène Lehtinen, Director of Barrier Development at Metsä Board, explains how brands can make the transition successfully with the help of Metsä Board. Recommendations based on hard facts.
„As a pioneer in sustainability, it is our job to support food manufacturers as an expert partner. This means showing them, based on hard facts and thorough testing, how they can reduce over-packaging and minimise the use of plastics. For example, by switching to a recyclable, compostable alternative such as the dispersion-coated barrier board MetsäBoard Prime FBB EB.“
Hélène Lehtinen, Director of Barrier Development at Metsä Board
MetsäBoard Prime FBB EB is a fully coated, lightweight virgin fibre paperboard with a dispersion barrier coating that provides medium protection against grease and moisture. It can be recycled in the paper or board waste stream.
No two products are the same. Thorough testing is therefore essential to assess whether a new packaging material is suitable. This is the only way Metsä Board can prove that the new solution is safe and works exactly as it was designed. „We work closely with the customer to understand the product characteristics, the end use and the conditions the packaging will be exposed to,“ says Lehtinen. „At our centre of excellence in Äänekoski, we have the opportunity to simulate the production and storage conditions in climate chambers. This allows us to demonstrate how our cardboard alternative behaves in real life.“
Grease resistance is an important property for donut packaging in particular. „However, we also need to know whether the product will be packaged warm or cold, as condensation can occur with warm products. It is also important to know the expected storage conditions. This allows us to prove that the strength properties of the cartonboard are maintained even under humid conditions,“ says Lethinen. Carrying out this type of test on behalf of the customer speeds up the packaging development process considerably and ensures that Metsä Board can recommend the optimum paperboard product for each customer's application.
Source: Metsä Board
