Our Profit
Packaging by nature®
Elopak is a leading global supplier of carton packaging and filling equipment. The company’s iconic Pure-Pak® cartons are made using renewable, recyclable, and sustainably sourced materials, providing a natural and convenient alternative to plastic bottles that fits within a low carbon circular economy.
We call it Packaging by Nature®, scoping our potential customer pool broadly. A detailed description of our growth strategy can be found in Elopak’s Annual Report.
Next-generation demand
Pure-Pak® cartons have stood the test of time. Continuously anticipating the drivers of consumers’ markets, the value offered today already equates to the expectations of the next generation consumers through to 2030.
Pure-Pak® cartons are considered best-in-use – an essential brand asset, which we safeguard carefully.
We strongly believe that increasing sustainability awareness will drive the value of Elopak in the right direction, as customer preferences will have a positive impact on our addressable market.
Trond T. Dybvik, Director Corporate Finance & Tax
By using the already established and inherent value of Pure-Pak® cartons as a starting point, and by leveraging Elopak’s market-leading technology, we focus on bringing new solutions to the market that address broader issues and secure a healthy planet for future generations.
Pure-Pak® is the original, and we need to keep recognizing that within the core liquid carton market, the carbon footprint varies between the solutions offered. Our strategy accounts for the expectations of the next generation of consumers, and we aim to continue anticipating future and more demanding expectations. Leading the market increases our potential customer pool in the fresh and the larger aseptic beverage carton markets.
Moreover, we are expanding our market’s boundaries, creating new growth opportunities. Driving a low-carbon circular solution leads to a new perspective – from considering Elopak’s share in the core beverage carton markets to our opportunities in the world of rigid (plastic) packaging.
With our business model, built on sustainability, social equality, and responsibility, we are well placed to continue delivering innovative, low-carbon fiber-based packaging that reflects quality and authenticity.
Accelerating with a 2030 horizon
Increased environmental awareness entails various legislation across the globe, with one constant: near-term 2030 targets are inspired by the Paris Agreement. There is a sense of urgency embedded in the Agreement, which should not be ignored.
Considering the typical lifetime of a filling line in our core markets and forecasting the technology adoption lifecycle, we see it as our role to expand and maximize our markets, facilitating the introduction of low-carbon circular solutions earlier rather than later.
In order to further accelerate bringing innovations to market, investments have been made into the internal infrastructure in both areas of material and filling equipment development. First, through a new pilot converting line in our Technology Center located at Spikkestad, Norway, the significantly increased capacity of the in-house testing enables us to accelerate the entire packaging innovation process from development and screening to validation and commercial launch, also reducing the need for testing at the commercial plants. Second, as an enabler for a more efficient, faster, and flexible product development, the process of additive manufacturing of machine components has been introduced. The composite and metal printers enable significant time and cost savings through rapid prototyping and testing and, hereby, reduce the total time to market for the new products. Next to the product development, the technology is being introduced into the commercial production of spare parts, enabling the cost, lead time, and inventory level reduction to Elopak and its customers.
Over the course of 2021, Elopak has also increased the focus on Intellectual Property Rights (IPR) in order to safeguard legal rights, competitive edge, and the possibility of expanding and seeking new growth. Innovation and development are carefully monitored, and adequate IPR portfolios in terms of patents, industrial designs, and trademarks have been established in the relevant territories, aligned with the increased activity within the different development and innovation projects. Monitoring the IPR landscape within the relevant technical areas and ensuring legal protection of the R&D activities within Elopak are prerequisites on our journey to further contribute to a sustainable future for humankind. The annual number of our intellectual property filings, which is a strong indicator of innovation, showed remarkable resilience during the two years of the pandemic, having increased by more than 50% due to the progress in our development activities.
Our cartons are increasingly becoming a norm on the shop floor, with brands and retailers changing the way they package their products. They’re making the change to reduce their impact on the environment by using less plastic while providing shoppers with the choice to make a difference. Elopak’s low carbon, circular approach to packaging is also a very attractive proposition as it actively supports them in reaching their own sustainability goals and reducing their carbon footprint, which has become much more of a focus.
Martin Shaw, Market Unit Manager, UK
Despite the continued restriction in mobility during 2021, Elopak continued transferring the product innovations out of its R&D hubs in Germany and Norway to support our growth strategy in the respective geographical markets. The introduction and roll-out of the successful Natural Brown Board into the North American market have, among others, been enabled by close cooperation between the project teams working in our Technology Center in Norway and the teams working in our converting plant in Montreal and at customer’s operations. To facilitate across-the-ocean teamwork in periods of banned travel between continents, a dedicated reference “American” filling machine was installed in our European Test Centre to complement field testing on US customers. This approach, further facilitated by remote support tools and services both to our customers and our service engineers, allowed us to successfully complete the validation process and introduce the new board to the market during 2021.