Luxury Packaging in focus
At James Cropper, we have always been innovative specialist papermakers listening to our customers' needs. It is fair to say that design with sustainability in mind is high on the agenda for brands in every sector. In today’s world, the focus on the provenance of products, and leaving little to no trace on the planet means that brands are actively seeking to remove problematic materials from their packaging supply chain, and switching to renewable sources where possible.
In fact, paper and pulped products are emerging as a shining example of best practice for circular design - and James Cropper is a business that has been focused on helping brands to make that switch.
More and more consumers expect not only the products, but also the packaging to demonstrate care and consideration for the environment. As a result, we are seeing increased demand for paper with recycled content across the board. With an ambition that 50% of the fibre we use being from waste streams by 2025, recycled materials are a big focus for James Cropper.
Last year demand accelerated for paper incorporating post-consumer waste, and in recent times we’ve seen more requests for CupCycling – our unique process for turning used coffee cups into beautiful papers. The more we advance in sustainable products and the more the mindset of our customers and the end consumer evolves, the more selective the demand becomes.
In recognition of this shift we have developed the Rydal collection of papers for premium packaging applications, which includes an option with the ultimate 100% post-consumer waste recycled fibre.
The idea behind the Rydal collection is also to give the market access to a choice of specific packaging papers¬¬. There are many paper collections that are designed for multi-applications, of which packaging is one. Rydal, on the other hand, is a product range designed specifically for packaging – be that a folding box, shopping bag or box covering application.
We also wanted to give brands the opportunity to align their choice to their marketing, so we offer three paper grades in black and white that are made on a regular basis: 100% post-consumer waste recycled, 40% post-consumer waste recycled and 100% fresh fibre from responsible forestry sources (FSC).
FSC is no longer a differentiator in itself; all of our papers are FSC-certified and it’s a standard that has now been democratized. Recycled gets more complicated, so we are discerning in the recycled fibres that we process as you can have different quality content.
One of the best post-consumer waste fibres for packaging comes from our own reclaimed fibre made from upcycled cups and production offcuts, as the fibres are long and have the strength characteristics that suit luxury packaging papers. We also use other PCW sources such as recycled office waste.
Our luxury clients often look for something that is unique, in terms of a Tailor Made colour and often a textural finish. In addition to paper products, we also create moulded packaging.
Our plastic free moulded fibre packaging innovation, COLOURFORMTM, is a thermoformed mono-material paper option that has provided sustainable alternatives to single-use plastics for beauty brands, such as Floral Street and the L’Oreal Group. We have also created a contemporary new eco-responsible secondary packaging for champagne house Maison Ruinart in partnership with Pusterla that is 100% recyclable and nine times lighter than the previous box.
For those brands wanting the added assurance of anti-viral product protection, our innovative PaperGard incorporating silver ion technology can be included for all packaging options.
We’ve mainly had requests for PaperGard in the luxury space for shopping bags and rigid boxes. It’s less of a problem for folding boxes as if you purchase a perfume for example, it usually comes with a protective film. However, if the brands decide to remove the packaging film from their offer, then PaperGard would be a benefit here too.
Going forward, we are planning a significant investment to expand our in-house embossing facilities. This is also linked to sustainability as shopping bags often used to be laminated with plastic, but brands are increasingly asking for embossing because in addition to the visual product benefits it also helps in resistance to finger-marks and scuffing.
