Reinvest 2050 » Demo plant producing new Muoto® packaging products.

Demo plant producing new Muoto® packaging products.

Project Description

Muoto packages are made of wood fibre with three dimensions. They are recyclable and produced from renewable raw materials. Muoto is a good alternative to plastic and aluminium in packaging solutions. The greenfield demo plant in Äänekoski Finland relies on an entirely new technology: it presses the wood-based material into its final form and allows to tailor the product properties in line with the intended use. The collaboration project with Valmet received the second prize in the international Quality Innovation Award and won the category for ‘Potential innovations’ in the Finnish Quality Innovation Award competition in 2022.

The demo plant was inaugurated in August 2022 and employs ten people. The challenges faced by the team span from issues related to the novel production technology to finding products that fit perfectly the market demand.

Project Purpose

The main goal of the project is to develop a process enabling the production of new 3D fibre-based packages that compete with fossil-based packages. This would present the packaging industry with a new and more sustainable alternative in different applications.

Reduce waste by protecting products and guaranteeing food safety
Replace plastics
Fossil free mills and raw materials by 2030
Resource efficient production and materials
Sustainable supply chain minimizing waste and transport
Recyclable and biodegradable

Project Evaluation

It is important that new competitive value-added products are developed from renewable raw material. Muoto is made from fossil-free raw materials for people’s everyday life. Our target: cost competitive solution meeting the required technical properties for packaging.

The next step is to evaluate the project against its potential and finalise the commercialisation of the concept.

The international Quality Innovation Award based its evaluation on novelty, usability, learning, customer orientation and performance.

Jarkko Tuominen, Vice President projects, Metsä spring Oy:

“The core objectives of our project have been high quality, safety and sustainability from the outset. We have succeeded in creating a wood fibre-based product that meets these objectives. We are now developing the Muoto product to be tested in the packaging industry for various purposes. This has been a special project as we have been developing new concept and technology to be able to meet the requirements of the future customers. This requires seamless collaboration and multidisciplinarity. Our schedule is tight, but we have kept to it by anticipating and tackling challenges in many areas. We have a team of professionals from Metsä and Valmet, our main partner, and from many other different disciplines working together on the project, and the goal is clear”.

Main Features of the project:

CO2 Emissions saved (tCO2)

Based on preliminary calculations the impact on saved GHG emissions is remarkable when replacing plastic packaging in the market. The total impact should be positive in many cases even when comparing to reusable solutions.

Investment

At the end of 2020, Metsä Group’s innovation company Metsä Spring and Valmet announced they would be investing a total of approximately 20 million euros in the demo plant.

Partnerships

The project has been jointly developed by Metsä Spring and Valmet. The project thus combines Metsä Group’s expertise in production and packaging design, Metsä Spring’s innovative organisation and Valmet’s experience as a technology supplier.