Viipurilainen Kotileipomo is a nearly 100-year-old company that produces pastries and artisan breads from local ingredients using traditional methods. When the bakery was looking for a new solution for its cake packaging, its key criteria were to reduce the environmental footprint of the packaging, and to make assembly quick and easy.
Viipurilainen Kotileipomo and Metsä Board's packaging design team based at Metsä Board's Excellence Centre jointly developed a resource-efficient and 100% recyclable bakery packaging. The new eye-catching packaging reduces material requirements by 25%, and carbon dioxide emissions by 34% compared to the previous packaging. At the same time, the bakery was able to reduce its use of plastic by moving away from a PE-coated board. In addition to the environmental benefits, the design of the new bakery box makes it quicker and easier to assemble.
"Packaging sustainability is important to us and our customers, and it's great to be able to spread the word about reducing plastic and promoting recycling. The whole product development process was carried out in a structured way at the Excellence Centre and the new stylish packaging was quickly brought to market," says Teppo Ylä-Hemmilä, Bread Artist and Innovation Director, Viipurilainen Kotileipomo.
"The new concept is an excellent example of innovative solutions made possible by joint brainstorming. In designing the packaging, we used a virtual model at our Excellence Centre to quickly and accurately visualise the material, structure and its sustainability," says Ilkka Harju, Packaging Services Director, EMEA and APAC, Metsä Board.
The bakery packaging is made of lightweight MetsäBoard Prime FBB EB, a dispersion coated barrier board, which can be recycled using paper or paperboard collection waste streams. The MetsäBoard Prime FBB EB board is thick and resistant to grease, which is key for food that naturally have a high fat content such as pastries and cakes.