Surrounded by the beautiful Porovesi beach landscape in Iisalmi, Olvi is the only one of the three major beverage manufacturers to have remained Finnish-owned. Founded in 1878, the company emphasizes creating a high-quality consumer experience and respecting the environment. That’s why Olvi has chosen corrugated cardboard as the material for their beverage multipack.
Product packaging is always an essential part of the consumer experience. A distinctive look awakens interest, and durable packaging ensures that the products can be carried comfortably – and above all, remain undamaged.
The user experience of the packaging affects what the consumer thinks about the entire brand. If the handle on your packaging breaks, rest assured – it will be remembered during the next shopping trip. The same goes for handle ergonomics.
“For our consumers, Olvi’s packaging is naturally going to be top-of-mind when they’re considering our product, so the packaging has to be good – and durable on top of that,” says Olvi’s Marketing Director Olli Heikkilä.
Lemtapes’ reinforcement tapes strengthen the beverage multipacks and carrying handles of Olvi’s drink brands, including Sandels, A. Le Coq, Olvi and Sherwood. Thanks to Lemtapes tapes, their packages can withstand transport from the factory to the store, as well as from the checkout line to the consumer’s home.
Reinforcement tapes widen the range of printing possibilities
For Olvi, packaging isn’t just packaging – it’s also a way to send a message to their customers. Multipacks have large printing areas, a useful canvas for brand visibility and consumer communication. In the brewing industry, the print quality for products is always evolving. In the future, these images could be nearly photorealistic.
“In terms of advertising, external appearance is extremely important, because people buy with their eyes. Particularly when we’re thinking in terms of volume, the communication value in the packaging is high,” says Heikkilä.
Reinforcement tapes are applied to the inside of corrugated board during the manufacturing stage so that they don’t reduce the printing area on the surface of the package. This offers more choice to brand owners in terms of design while enabling high quality printing. Visuality and logistics features are also important from a market perspective. Packaging should appeal to consumers without taking up unnecessary space and must be able to last throughout the logistics chain.
The road to an oil-free future
In the beverage industry, product packaging is the single most significant factor burdening the environment. Environmental friendliness, from the beginning of production to recycling, is a key trend in the industry.
Decreasing packaging weight is one way to reduce environmental load, because this also reduces the amount of material used for production. Lemtapes reinforcement tapes strengthen the packaging, and therefore reduce the amount of material needed. These tapes are also available in even more ecological alternatives: cellulose-based Pure Tape – developed by Lemtapes – and Eco Tape, which is made from recycled material.
When comparing corrugated versus plastic packaging, cost and sustainability usually come to the fore. At Olvi, sustainability is integrated into the company’s entire production chain, beginning with their EKOenergy-certified power sources.
Although Olvi has considered transitioning to plastic film for cost reasons, their environmental outlook proved more important.
“We’re striving for an oil-free future, which is why being plastic free is important to us. Whether our beverage packaging is made of plastic or corrugated board has a big effect on the environment, because the product volume is so large.”