The KM7 machine is designed to produce liquid packaging board, white top kraftliner, cartonboard and cup stock

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Image: BillerudKorsnäs board member Michael Kaufmann among others. Photo: courtesy of BillerudKorsnäs.

Swedish pulp and paper manufacturer BillerudKorsnäs has commissioned KM7 machine at its Gruvön mill to boost operations.

Said to be the company’s biggest investment to date, the KM7 machine has a length of 350m and weighs 17,000t.

The machine is designed to produce liquid packaging board, white top kraftliner, cartonboard and cup stock for milk cartons, fruit boxes, and quality cardboard boxes.

KM7 aims to meet the demand for sustainable packaging solutions

Intended to meet the increasing demand for sustainable packaging solutions for the food and beverages industry, the new KM7 machine has a production capacity of 550,000 tonnes/year, which equates to 100 million 1-litre milk cartons every day.

BillerudKorsnäs said in a statement: “The products that are manufactured in the machine will help reduce the world’s use of fossil-based plastics for many years into the future.”

The commissioning is part of BillerudKorsnäs’s expansion plan announced in 2016 for its manufacturing facility in Gruvön, Värmland County.

The plan includes installation of a new Voith XcelLine board machine along with rebuilding of the existing pulp mill.

The mill’s approximately 50% production will be dedicated towards liquid packaging board, while the remaining will include folding boxboard, food service board and kraftliner.

Recently, BillerudKorsnäs has expanded its Xpression product portfolio with the introduction of a new e-commerce packaging solution known as Xpression E-Com.

Xpression E-Com is a paper quality specifically developed for e-commerce bags. It will serve as a direct substitute for single-use plastic mailing bags and other less efficient solutions.

The Swedish firm said that advanced durability of the new Xpression E-com facilitates a direct substitution from plastic bags to paper bags.

BillerudKorsnäs business development manager Tom Hallam said: “We see increasing demand from consumers for genuinely sustainable solutions, resulting in continuous requests from our customers for a packaging material that offers low environmental impact and full recyclability.”

BillerudKorsnäs produces renewable, fibre-based packaging products and solutions as well as liquid packaging board and other cartonboard.