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According to Nellis, both WKL and FBB are hard to beat since they provide market-leading performance and quality with “an unmatched” common stock warehousing program. There are differences, too, starting with the size of the respective market. “In WKL, we maintain a large percentage of the overall market in North America. In FBB, Metsä Board swims in a much larger pool.” Delivering R&D edge Currently, Metsä Board’s R&D is hard at work developing even better paperboard solu- tions. Markku Leskelä , Senior Vice President, Development at Metsä Board, perceives light- weighting and barrier development to be at the very core of Metsä Board’s R&D. “If you look at lightweighting, for instance, there’s just so much one can achieve due to the fact that the packaging volumes are so huge. One calculation example: if big global brands used all our FBB to make 19-gram (0.67 oz.) cookie boxes, it would make 160 million boxes every day. Even the tiniest change in the mate- rials used can make a huge difference.” It should also be noted that Metsä Board’s ambition level goes well beyond “tiny.” Leskelä explains that the R&D teams use a unique simulation tool that helps them to really zero in on the structure of the would-be package. “Via simulation, we can really optimize each and every packaging solution,” Leskelä says,
adding that Metsä Board R&D has been using this simulation tech for about three years now. “Simulation has made our work a lot more effective. We can now get a viable simulation approximation of the desired package within a couple of days.” When barriers go green The other game changer is the use of advanced barriers. MetsäBoard Prime FBB EB, for exam- ple, is a dispersion-coated barrier paperboard with a medium barrier that works against grease and moisture. “Protecting the package from the moisture and grease within the food is what the barriers do, and there is also a great deal of versatility there.” Barriers can be green, too. The packaging industry is reducing the amount of polymers in barrier coatings, which entails replacing the extrusion barrier with a dispersion barrier in paperboards, for example. “Already, 90 percent of our barrier boards are fiber-based, and we have plans in place to make all our barriers from renewable materials.” Working with paradigm-busting barriers and lightweighting solutions is still just a part of the Metsä Board “innovation train” that only keeps gaining momentum. “We need research and fresh ideas to make the sustainable packaging solutions of the future. The challenge is not exactly a small one, but I feel we’re very capable of handling it.” •
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