Packaging Solutions
In the spring, Metsä Board announced that its modular takeaway packaging, targeted at restaurants’ takeaway services, was one of the seven winning concept ideas in the Helsinki Wholesale market area’s innovation competition. The winners were able to enter a pilot phase which has now come to the end. The takeaway packaging, developed by the project group led by Metsä Board, is easily recyclable and made of Metsä Board’s fresh fibre paperboard. In this initial pilot both consumers and restauranteurs found this solution easy to use and functional as well as easy to recycle.
Today many of the takeaway packages that restaurants use are made of expanded polystyrene (EPS) and this is one of the products hit by the EU’s Single Use Plastics Directive. Restaurants urgently need new packaging solutions and paperboard offers a sustainable alternative. The modular packaging, made by the project group, can also be closed more tightly than an EPS container, and in addition, paperboard can be printed and therefore presents branding opportunities.
The takeaway packaging includes an outer packaging that can accommodate several trays of different sizes, depending on the food in question. The restaurants can customise the packaging with own printed stickers while the packaging’s visual design remain the same for all restaurants as they purchase their takeaway packages through a wholesaler. The restauranteurs have now been sent samples that they can further test during the summer.
‘The packaging was developed through various discussions and workshops where the whole packaging value chain was taken into account,’ said Leena Yliniemi, technical marketing director for Metsä Board. ‘It is also worth noting that in the consumer study respondents said that they are willing to pay more for packaging made of paperboard as they found it more sustainable. Our packaging also enhanced the image of premium food.’
The team, led by Metsä Board, consisted of Cadpack Oy, a Finnish Company which designed and manufactured the packaging. Package Testing & Research Ltd was responsible for coordinating the pilot as well as for the consumer studies with Sense N Insight research services. The innovation competition, funded by the City of Helsinki and Business Finland, was organised to find new technological and other innovative solutions specifically for food and food production, and also packaging, circular economy and clean technologies.
