Substrate specialist Metsä Board has started up operations at its new Excellence Centre at the company’s bioeconomy site in Äänekoski, Finland, intended to ‘develop solutions for packaging today and into the future’.
The Excellence Centre, which covers a total of 1500sqm, includes R&D facilities, a packaging design studio, a customer feedback centre, and a state-of-the art laboratory providing more than 100 different measurement methods and analytics. The centre also features a virtual store and a computer-aided engineering (CAE) tool to allow sophisticated simulation and analysis of packaging performance.
The centre is intended to accelerate material and packaging innovation, and provide a collaboration platform for customers and technology partners globally.
Metsä Board CEO Mika Joukio said, ‘As the amount of packaging continues to grow, new, sustainable solutions are needed to replace fossil-based materials and ensure circularity. The Excellence Centre concept enables paperboard and packaging solutions that look at the entire value chain, and not just at its separate parts. With the material know-how, competence and tools now available, we can optimise performance throughout the packaging lifecycle.’
Mr Joukio continued, ‘Renewable and recyclable fresh fibre paperboard can be utilised for packaging in many ways. Fibre-based packaging has a lot to offer, and together with our partners and the new Excellence Centre, we are able to explore the possibilities even more comprehensively. I am excited about the opportunities this will bring for today and the future.’
Read more about sustainable packaging developments in the July/August issue of Digital Labels & Packaging, and here
