When Carlsberg starts contemplating innovative new packaging designs, the focus is
on the consumer. Packaging innovation director Marine Andre gets straight to the
point. “For us, consumer experience has top priority. After all, in store we have less
than two seconds for our products to be noticed on the shelf. If you’re not
conspicuous, you’re not there.” This is hardly surprising when we consider that one
consumer passes about 300 different products a minute at the supermarket.
Intensive market research has discovered that sustainability is something consumers
expect – but don’t actively ‘reward’. They’re not willing to pay a premium for it. It’s
thus all the more important that sustainable packaging is both functional and gets
brands noticed. “We’re consciously trying to break down the barriers between
sustainable packaging, optimized costs and the perfect consumer experience,”
explains Andre. “If a system doesn’t score with at least two of these criteria, it’s
doomed to fail.
Visual brand presence
One good example that shows how Carlsberg is exploring new avenues is the DS
Smith Round Wrap®, a cardboard multipack with curved edges for beer bottles. It
provides added value on three counts. Firstly, it gives the brand a greater visual
presence, upgrades the pack and boosts its impact on the shelf. This has been
proved by scientific studies carried out by the Harvard Medical School, among
others: they show that objects with round shapes are perceived as being more
attractive than those with square corners and edges. Secondly, this new style of
secondary packaging uses less material, has a smaller carbon footprint and is better
protected against damage during transportation. And thirdly, as the pack can be
produced on existing packaging machines, no large investments are needed, with the
consumer not having to pay a higher price.
Long learning process
Before the new multipack made it onto the shelf, however, the concept had to
undergo a lengthy learning process. “We started the first trials in Sweden back in
2020,” remembers senior packaging implementation and optimization manager
Bogdan Volkotrub, the man who holds operative responsibility for the project at
Carlsberg headquarters. “Before we started thinking in greater quantities, we first
wanted to prove on a small scale that this solution could actually be implemented at
all. At first, we weren’t successful because we couldn’t produce constant quality.”
The breakthrough ultimately came with participation of the right partners in 2022. DS
Smith, manufacturer of sustainable packaging, was able to provide sufficient material
and exhibited the necessary testing, learning and validation perseverance, working in
a team with Dortmund systems supplier KHS. The latter first analyzed which of its
packaging machines in operation in the Carlsberg universe could process the new
packs without the need for substantial conversion. “It’s like playing with LEGO,” is
how Volkotrub describes the process. “One piece is the material, one represents the
machine and a third stands for teamwork. If just one bit doesn’t fit, you can’t build
anything decent from the pieces.”Finding the right market
All that then remained to be done in order to make that perfect fit and finally go live
was to identify a suitable test market. The choice eventually fell to the sales region
serviced by Carlsberg’s Polish subsidiary. Here, bottled brand products such as
Carlsberg, Garage and Somersby are primarily packaged into big packs holding 20
or 24 containers. For these, wrap-around cartons are used instead of plastic crates.
The production site also already had a packer that could produce the new multipack,
namely a KHS Innopack Kisters WP Advanced. In 2024 the first packs with rounded
corners began to appear on the shelves of Polish supermarkets.
Testing material combinations
Rounded corners make high demands of the material and the way it’s processed.
Jonathan Carter, head of Innovation Product Management at DS Smith, explains
what’s important here. “We need an outer liner that’s robust enough to stabilize the
curve, whereas the inner liner must be much lighter to enable the fluting to form
perfectly. This is the only way to produce a smooth curve without the material
creasing or tearing.” To make sure the quality was right, DS Smith tested countless
combinations of paper, types of corrugation, adhesive and machine parameters in a
laborious, iterative process before the material was dispatched to the customer.
Carter is pleased to call the test result the “golden ratio” of material composition.
Surprisingly simple solution
During the final phase of the project, DS Smith sent thirteen pallets representing a
limited selection of different material variants to KHS in Kleve. Here, they were
subjected to vigorous machine testing by the packaging experts. One of these,
Tobias Kersten, outlines what was technically possible on the existing systems.
“When we first heard about a wrap-around pack with rounded corners, lots of us
asked how this was going to work.” In the end, the solution was surprisingly
pragmatic. “We simply had to use other guide and folding tools in the folding area,”
Kersten states. “In practical operation, this calls for just minor adjustments. Our
specialists set up the system with the utmost precision so that the new format can be
seamlessly integrated into modern wrap-around packers. This enables the machines to provide excellent process stability and fabricate the new type of packaging without any notable loss in performance.” This key aspect emphasizes the wrap-around
packer’s flexibility and high market acceptance, he adds.
