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Art of packaging
“You can reuse the mug as a coffee cup, for example. There will be a slight flavour of liquorice in the coffee from the mug.” Timo Nisula, Managing Director, Kouvolan Lakritsi
A mug full of liquorice
Kouvolan Lakritsi’s new liquorice mug was created as the result of Metsä Board’s proactive product development work. In a consumer survey, the mug was found to be more practical than a plastic pouch.
Elina Hovinen, photos: Jussi Hellsten and Metsä Board
F resh, soft liquorice is an unrivalled delica- cy. But a plastic sweet pouch getting torn or getting one’s hands sticky is not a nice experience. “We had long been thinking about whether the sales package for liquorice could be something else than a sweet pouch,” says Timo Nisula , the Managing Director of Kouvolan Lakritsi. Kouvolan Lakritsi is a Finnish company estab- lished in 1906. In addition to its main product, liquorice, it makes sweets and marmalade, among other things. The company has produced its fa- mous liquorice with the same recipe since 1960. Kouvolan Lakritsi has been collaborating with Metsä Board in packaging solutions for sever- al years. Metsä Board’s proactive product devel- opment work resulted in the liquorice mug – a reclosable package made of paperboard, which solves the problems related to the plastic sweet pouch and can compete with it in terms of cost-ef- fectiveness. An airtight lid requires testing Kouvolan Lakritsi’s requirements for the packag- ing included conformity with all regulations and standards and suitability for the planned use. The cost-effective production of the packaging was also brought up.
“The packaging must also feel good when held, and it must not appear too fragile or cheap, even if it’s made from the best raw materials for the en- vironment,” says Nisula. The idea for the liquorice mug came from the disposable cup for hot beverages. Metsä Board’s packaging designers thought about how the round top edge of the cup could be used for closing the package, and which material choices would make the disposable paperboard cup suitable for liquo- rice packaging. While the basic product concept was simple, the mechanism for attaching an airtight lid was of some concern to the packaging designers. The design team decided to test whether a heat-sealed trans- parent plastic film kept the liquorice fresh. Once opened, the reclosable paperboard cover effective- ly preserves the liquorice. Futupack, Metsä Group’s partner, invested in a heat-sealing device that enabled the product de- velopment of Kouvolan Lakritsi’s liquorice mug. “Heat-sealing the film to the cup’s edge worked surprisingly well, so we moved on to test the prod- uct’s shelf life and other material properties,” says Timo Kallio , Metsä Board’s Technical Expertise Service Director. The moisture of the product must not pen- etrate the packaging, and the liquorice must
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