During this year’s Drupa trade show in Düsseldorf Metsä Board was showcasing fresh-fibre carton qual­ities designed for use with consumer goods, pos solutions, and foodser­vice packaging material.  Metsä Board's ­acclaimed carton qualities do meet the ever more stringent packaging ­demands, in addition to ­offering brand protection and con­veying sales messages in a host of pos applications.
”We have combined our expertise surrounding the field of fresh-fibre ­carton with cutting-edge technology in an effort to support our customers' business. As we’ve announced in last November, Metsä Board is investing ­in a brand new extrusion coating ­sys­tem based in our Husum plant. ­We picked­ our main suppliers just recently, and the project’s making headway,” said CEO Mika Joukio. "What’s more, in our Husum plant we're running ­Europe’s most modern folding boxboard machine that started producing at the beginning of the year.”
The new extrusion plant is set to ­be committed in the first half of 2017, boasting a PE coating capacity of some 100,000 tonnes per year. At ­present, PE is the most common ­barrier material used to contain moisture and fat in the food and foodservice packaging segment. But Metsä Board has even more barrier solutions in the pipeline, including bio-based materials.
The Husum-made Carta Dedica family of products is Metsä Board’s ­response to the demands posed by the foodservice market, affording an alternative to other packaging options on the basis of renewable fresh wood fibres, which makes it ideal for cups, plates, trays and the like. Pending the start-up of the company’s own extrusion machine, the coating of Metsä Board's carton qualities is still being handled by a subcontractor.