German sugar producer Nordzucker has cut the cost of packaging its powdered sugar by over 10% following a switch from bag-in-box packs to a patented "Chrystal Air Box" system incorporating a thin paper seal at the top and bottom.
A major contributor to the cost savings was a change to AssiDomän’s Frövi Bright cartonboard.
The board’s “excellent moisture resistance, taint and odour neutrality” enabled Nordzucker to dispense with a previous PE coating system. Purchasing manager Holger Bensemann elaborates: “We saved around 10% from these changes alone, while still achieving a better performance in terms of stability and whiteness of the reverse.”
Another reason for the revamp was retailer demand for a system that eliminated the use of fully closed transport packs. This placed tough demands on the board’s compression strength, but Assi used its Optipack program to arrive at the optimum pack construction, resulting in a switch from 255 g/m2 folding boxboard with 13gsm PE coating to 270g/m2 Frövi Bright.
The packs are now loaded straight into trays without tops, which are then directly stacked on top of each other, producing “significant” savings.