This year, it is the Incada board that Iggesund Paperboard put under the spotlights at the Luxe Pack Monaco tradeshow. Actually, the Swedish papermaker just launched an upgraded version of this its folding box board, which is used for packaging but also for book and brochure covers, and other graphical applications.
Whiter, lighter, stronger
The new Incada will be whiter and lighter and also have a number of improved properties affecting printability. Incada Exel, which is more of a specialised packaging board, will also have improved stiffness, with a gain of up to 10 to 15 per cent for grammages over 300 g/m2.
“This enables our customers to reduce their packaging weights while keeping the same protection for the contents,” explains Guy Mallinson, sales manager at Iggesund.
The improved stiffness has also led to a revision of Incada Exel’s grammage range to better suit the demands of the current customer base. The whiteness improvement amounts to 7.5 units on the CIE scale and most of it lies in the L value, which is critical for colour reproduction. Runnability is also improved so that Incada can function even better in customers’ processes.
“Incada was introduced in 2001 and since then we’ve made many small quality improvements,” adds Robin Lewis, product manager for Incada. “This is a big leap forward and will definitely strengthen our market position.”
No emission of fossil CO2
The biggest change of all for Incada, though, has no effect at all on printability or the economy of customers’ own processes. Incada is manufactured at Iggesund Paperboard’s mill in Workington. This spring the mill changed its energy source from fossil natural gas to biomass, which is burned in a new combined heat and power plant. Overnight the mill eliminated its fossil carbon emissions from more than 190,000 tonnes a year to zero. The reduction is the equivalent of the annual emissions from more than 65,000 cars, each driven 20,000 kilometres a year.
“This adds even more power to our sales message,” Lewis concludes. “Paperboard in general is a very sustainable packaging material. By changing our energy source and upgrading Incada we are now at the summit of the folding box board market in terms of both product properties and sustainability.”
This investment in the new biofuel boiler is also a matter of profitability and is regarded as a way to stabilise energy costs. Indeed, Iggesund anticipates that fossil-based energy will rise faster than that of biofuel.
Made in UK
Iggesund Paperboard in Workington is the UK’s only producer of folding box board and has 400 employees.
“Thanks to investments spanning more than a decade, Iggesund Paperboard has raised the standard of what was a very middle-of-the-road paperboard mill to one that is state of the art,” comments Ulf Löfgren, the mill’s managing director. “Including the 108 million pounds spent on the biofuel boiler, we have invested more than 200 million pounds in this transformation.”
Step by step the investments and renovations have raised both the quality and quality consistency of Incada. As a result, the mill has found new end uses for its product and gradually improved its profitability.
First deliveries of the new Incada can are beginning this November.
