The Finnish forest industry is developing new "smart" solutions for the packaging industry together with the paper, chemical, electronics and electrotechnics industries. Such smart packages carry information of product freshness, authenticity and origin. They can even entertain the consumer.

E-commerce, a global economy and the increasing amount of single person households present a host of new challenges for the packaging industry. The environmental requisites for the packaging industry are also stringent and consumers demand increasingly varied information of the packaged product.

The forest industry is actively developing new solutions for the packaging industry. In fact, the industry is paving the way for a technological leap: to supply packages with the product, logistics and consumer information currently often stored in various, separate media. Future smart packages will combine the best expertise of Finland's paper, chemical and electronics industries.

Examples of smart packages are a singing cereal box on the breakfast table, a medicinal package sounding an alarm when its last date of use approaches, and a product that is able to give its exact location with GPS. A smart package is an active protector and information dispenser. It can also entertain the consumer.

A colour indicator shows the freshness of the product

Finland's highly-networked business environment offers ideal "laboratory conditions" for co-operation between various branches of industry. The Finnish forest industry, for example, has become a leading developer of smart packages for food products.

Co-operation with biotechnology companies has delivered expertise to the Finnish packaging industry, now used for example in the packaging of delicate food products. The Technical Research Centre of Finland (VTT) has developed a leak indicator for packages with preservative gas. The indicator's colour changes from white to blue if air gets in to the package. Biotechnological packaging solutions can also give direct information of product quality. In such cases, the freshness indicators changes colour when the product starts to go bad.

Smart labels prevent counterfeits

Smart labels combine the expertise of the electronics, electrotechnics and forest industries. For example Rafsec, from Finland, develops and manufactures packaging labels equipped with extremely thin and durable Radio Frequency Identification Transponders (RFIDs), which are laminated between paper, film or plastic. This kind of electronic product code is less easy to forge as the EAN-code. The data stored in such electronic codes may be modified and the information of several products can be read simultaneously without direct visible contact.

Smart labels can be used in locating or tracking, in preventing theft and forgery or in confirming authenticity, especially for designer products. Microelectronics can also be used to improve product safety by monitoring the conditions it has experienced in the logistics chain, such as temperature, humidity, vibration or exposure to chemicals.

A future challenge for the Finnish packaging industry is to combine the biotechnological and electronic packaging solutions with everyday products. Biotechnological freshness and leakage censor information can be stored in electronic applications, such as in the intelligent RFID labels.

>> www.ptr.fi
>> www.rafsec.com
>> www.pakkaus.com
>> www.forestindustries.fi
>> www.vtt.fi