Katri Kauppila, Vice President for Marketing Communications

Premium Beauty News -What are the specific needs of the beauty industry regarding packaging cardboards?

Katri Kauppila - As far as cosmetic and beauty products are concerned, customers and consumers are really demanding. The boards they use must have outstanding surface properties, in particular brightness and visual smoothness to achieve high quality printing results.

Our range of boards dedicated to the beauty industry feature three products: Carta Elega, Carta Solida and Carta Integra. They are recommended for fragrances, make-up products, toiletries, hair coloration products and other demanding packaging.

Carta Elega is a fully coated folding boxboard with a coated back offering superior visual smoothness with high brightness as well as equal bluish-white shade on both sides providing excellent print quality and a perfect top surface for foil lamination and special features.

Carta Solida is a fully coated board with a white back. Its brilliant visual appearance enables attractive print results, and its high brightness leaves unprinted areas with a clean look. Carta Solida also holds excellent sensory properties thanks to its high purity.

Carta Integra, is also a fully coated board with coated back, recommended for demanding packaging as well as graphics.

Premium Beauty News - And all these cardboards are made from fresh fibres?

Katri Kauppila - Absolutely! They are entirely made from fresh Nordic forest fibres. It is an absolute requirement for guaranteeing the quality level of the boards and their environment-friendliness too.

M-real can trace all the wood it uses back to forest sites. All M-real mills hold chain of custody certification from forest to product, and support the use of certified wood. Any additives are closely monitored and dedicated experts ensure chemical safety and compliance with EU regulations.

Furthermore, fresh fibres enable the making of lightweight cartonboards and simultaneously reduce costs throughout the packaging chain. Lightweight boards consume fewer raw materials, reduce transport weights and cause less waste at the end of the packaging’s life cycle.

Premium Beauty News - M-real sustainability goals are focused on lightweight boards?

Katri Kauppila - Not only. Sustainable development is an integrated part of strategy both for M-real and its parent company Metsäliitto. This starts from the source of all our products: the forests.

In forest management, from cutting of trees to the manufacturing, we strive for a reduction of our environmental impact.

We also invest a lot in our production processes. To reduce our carbon footprint we are increasing the use of biopower. For instance, we are building a new biopower plant that will cut down CO2 emissions by approximately 100,000 tons per year, equivalent to the annual emissions of 60,000 cars. The plant will use e.g. bark, wood chips and wood fractions.

Premium Beauty News - Are there other investments scheduled?

Katri Kauppila - Yes, our target is to keep the production technology continuously at state-of-the-art level for the best of our customers.

M-real will partly rebuild the Kyro board machine towards the end of November this year. The mill’s capacity will increase by 40 000 tons per year to 190 000 tons per year. The Kyro board machine upgrade is part of M-real’s cartonboard investment programme 2011-2012, targeted at improving productivity, availability and service. Also as a part of the investment programme, M-real Simpele mill’s annual capacity was raised by 80 000 tonnes to 300 000 tonnes in June and M-real Äänekoski mill’s annual capacity is planned to be increased by 30 000 tonnes to 240 000 tonnes in the spring of 2012.

M-real Kyro is famous for Carta Elega whereas Äänekoski boasts Carta Integra and Carta Solida. Once investments at these mills will be completed we will be able to supply more cartonboard for the beauty industry.