Paper underlines high-quality printed matter
Paper At first glance, the major paper companies hardly seem to differ from one another. Finland’s M-real is successfully fighting against being seen as interchangeable on many fronts.
Paper At first glance, the major paper groups hardly differ from each other. M-real, the third-largest paper producer in Europe, is focusing on differentiation in order to survive in an increasingly competitive environment (see also article below). Those responsible for the M-real Kirkniemi mill, which specializes in the production of high-quality coated papers for web printing, together with those responsible for marketing in the Publishing Business Unit, recently explained to the trade press which paths the Group is taking in this regard.Committed to the environmentFor example, the continuation of sustainable production is not only an important, but even a central concern for the Finnish paper group. "Paper users increasingly want to know where the paper they use comes from," explained Armi Temmes, Senior Vice President Corporate Public Affairs. Thanks to state-of-the-art tools, M-real can now trace its production very precisely. This is done by using modern GIS systems to log the forests that are part of the Finnish Metsäliitto cooperative (which also owns M-real; see below). The forest areas released by the private owners are harvested with the help of this geographic information system and stored digital maps, which ultimately enables the timber to be traced.
M-real relies on the use of certified woods in the production of its paper and board grades. In this respect, the paper producer is already very far advanced: While only 7 percent of the world's 3.9 billion hectares of forest are certified, the proportion of wood used from certified forests at M-real is around 63 percent.
Proof of the origin of the woodThe tracking of the paper is finally ensured within a certification system. Although the PEFC (Program for Endorsement of Forest Certification) certification differs in some respects from the more familiar FSC (Forest Stewardship Council) label, it follows the same approach in its basic efforts to ensure continuous traceability of the product chain (chain of custody). This includes, first and foremost, proof of origin and proof of the proportion of certified wood. Customers can find out where the wood ultimately comes from and how it is composed in internationally standardized environmental declarations, known as paper profiles, which the company makes available on its website www.m-real.com.
The importance of the origin of the wood has various reasons for paper mills like M-real: "We can use it to ensure that the wood comes from legal sources, and thus not only support sustainable forestry, but also prove it," explains Martti Savalainen, mill manager at M-real Kirkniemi. In addition, the quality can be determined and ultimately the proportion of certified wood can be calculated.
However, the paper group does not want these voluntary measures to be seen as a marketing gimmick. The Group spokespersons point out that these measures, which are summarized under the term Corporate Responsibility, are lived by the Group and are seen as a response to society's demands.
Services beyond paperIn an effort to offer its customers first-class products, M-real has developed a range of services along the chain from paper to reader that are unique in the paper industry as a whole. M-real's paper management concept ensures optimized paper supply in the reel sector (reel papers are mostly supplied directly by the paper mills). With this, the paper producer takes care of ordering and supplying the paper rolls at the right time and in the right volume, based on the available storage capacity and the customer's paper consumption. "The publishing industry needs to find new ways to reduce overall costs. Our Paper Management helps our customers to do this," said Marjo Halonen, Vice President Marketing Communication, explaining this approach, which largely frees publishers and printers from paper procurement and storage.
The Sample Center, another service provided by the Publishing Business Area, produces unprinted or printed cover sample copies or dummy samples for customers on request and keeps voucher copies of magazines, catalogs, customer magazines, etc. printed on Gallery papers produced at the Kirkniemi mill. These samples are intended to help publishers, printers or agencies in their choice of paper. They also assist M-real's sales staff in advising customers.
M-real also helps its customers to reproduce images professionally. Thus, within a comprehensive consultation with the customer, the company not only tries to sensitize the customer about the danger of color shifts in printing, but also educates its clientele, if necessary, on how best to deal with the "fifth color", the paper, in terms of color management. "We provide our customers with recommendations for the use of color management standard profiles including ICC profiles when using our gallery papers," explains Miika Jokinen, Customer Applications.
The influence of paperBut M-real is not only concerned with the technical aspects. In order to better align its papers with customer needs, M-real wanted to know how paper affects readers. Since 1998, the company has therefore been conducting a study called "Reader Preference Research" together with the Department of Psychology at the University of Helsinki. The aim was also to find out whether paper can be used in a positive (influencing) way.
The fact that paper plays a role for the reader could have been expected, but the fact that the paper even reflects the high quality of the product shown, of the entire magazine, underlines the importance of the printing stock. "Paper and print quality have a very strong influence on the reader," even Ilka Grabener, Marketing Director M-real Publishing, commented on the results of the study. The extension of the study to other European countries ultimately revealed that whiter papers are better received in Scandinavia, but rather papers with a soft sheen in Spain.
"But the paper," says Grabener, "must above all match the layout and the demands of the client or agency." An art magazine has a different requirement than a customer magazine. The use of a paper also depends on the white space of the layout - and on the goal of the publisher/agency, whether the print product wants to go with the flow or rather stand out. According to the results of the study, readers judge print products more as a whole and tend to perceive paper subconsciously, while experts tend to get lost in the details. For this reason, it is ideal if the paper supplier is also involved in the evaluation of a paper, relaunch or new concept, in addition to the agency and the print shop. The findings of the study should also help M-real's customers to optimize not only the print quality but also the color management of the magazine titles.
From the results, the company has developed a study toolbox that M-real uses for its customer consultations. It contains information on which layout is suitable for which magazine - or even when finishing/varnishing is useful.
M-realThe paper producer M-real
is part of the Finnish Metsäliitto Group, the 10th largest forest industry group in the world. For its part, the Metsäliitto Group is owned by 130,000 private forest owners who own 12.6 million hectares of forest (annual sales: approximately 8.6 billion euros). In addition to wood supply, wood products and pulp production, Metsäliitto's most important business area is the manufacture of fine paper, board and specialty papers - collectively known as M-real.M-real generates sales of just over 5 billion euros with around 15,000 employees. The M-real Biberist mill in the canton of Solothurn is one of the 29 factories spread across Europe. In addition to paper and board production, M-real is also active in paper trading through the Map Merchant Group company; however, the Map Merchant Group is not active in Switzerland.
40 years of M-real KirkniemiLocated not far from Helsinki, the
Kirkniemi, three paper machines produce coated papers for heatset web offset printing. The production capacity of the machines is 730,000 tons per year, making M-real Kirkniemi the mill with by far the largest capacity within M-real. Paper machine 3 - internally called Gallery Queen - started up in 1996 and was the largest paper machine in the world at the time. It produces coated magazine papers at a speed of up to 1500 m/minute. The hall in which the machine is housed is around 500 meters long. Only "Galerie" papers are produced in Kirkniemi, which are available in grammages from 36 to 360 g/m2. The latest addition to the Galerie family, Galerie Fine, is also celebrating an anniversary this year: a decade of Fine.
Jürgen Franck
M-real relies on the use of certified woods in the production of its paper and board grades. In this respect, the paper producer is already very far advanced: While only 7 percent of the world's 3.9 billion hectares of forest are certified, the proportion of wood used from certified forests at M-real is around 63 percent.
Proof of the origin of the woodThe tracking of the paper is finally ensured within a certification system. Although the PEFC (Program for Endorsement of Forest Certification) certification differs in some respects from the more familiar FSC (Forest Stewardship Council) label, it follows the same approach in its basic efforts to ensure continuous traceability of the product chain (chain of custody). This includes, first and foremost, proof of origin and proof of the proportion of certified wood. Customers can find out where the wood ultimately comes from and how it is composed in internationally standardized environmental declarations, known as paper profiles, which the company makes available on its website www.m-real.com.
The importance of the origin of the wood has various reasons for paper mills like M-real: "We can use it to ensure that the wood comes from legal sources, and thus not only support sustainable forestry, but also prove it," explains Martti Savalainen, mill manager at M-real Kirkniemi. In addition, the quality can be determined and ultimately the proportion of certified wood can be calculated.
However, the paper group does not want these voluntary measures to be seen as a marketing gimmick. The Group spokespersons point out that these measures, which are summarized under the term Corporate Responsibility, are lived by the Group and are seen as a response to society's demands.
Services beyond paperIn an effort to offer its customers first-class products, M-real has developed a range of services along the chain from paper to reader that are unique in the paper industry as a whole. M-real's paper management concept ensures optimized paper supply in the reel sector (reel papers are mostly supplied directly by the paper mills). With this, the paper producer takes care of ordering and supplying the paper rolls at the right time and in the right volume, based on the available storage capacity and the customer's paper consumption. "The publishing industry needs to find new ways to reduce overall costs. Our Paper Management helps our customers to do this," said Marjo Halonen, Vice President Marketing Communication, explaining this approach, which largely frees publishers and printers from paper procurement and storage.
The Sample Center, another service provided by the Publishing Business Area, produces unprinted or printed cover sample copies or dummy samples for customers on request and keeps voucher copies of magazines, catalogs, customer magazines, etc. printed on Gallery papers produced at the Kirkniemi mill. These samples are intended to help publishers, printers or agencies in their choice of paper. They also assist M-real's sales staff in advising customers.
M-real also helps its customers to reproduce images professionally. Thus, within a comprehensive consultation with the customer, the company not only tries to sensitize the customer about the danger of color shifts in printing, but also educates its clientele, if necessary, on how best to deal with the "fifth color", the paper, in terms of color management. "We provide our customers with recommendations for the use of color management standard profiles including ICC profiles when using our gallery papers," explains Miika Jokinen, Customer Applications.
The influence of paperBut M-real is not only concerned with the technical aspects. In order to better align its papers with customer needs, M-real wanted to know how paper affects readers. Since 1998, the company has therefore been conducting a study called "Reader Preference Research" together with the Department of Psychology at the University of Helsinki. The aim was also to find out whether paper can be used in a positive (influencing) way.
The fact that paper plays a role for the reader could have been expected, but the fact that the paper even reflects the high quality of the product shown, of the entire magazine, underlines the importance of the printing stock. "Paper and print quality have a very strong influence on the reader," even Ilka Grabener, Marketing Director M-real Publishing, commented on the results of the study. The extension of the study to other European countries ultimately revealed that whiter papers are better received in Scandinavia, but rather papers with a soft sheen in Spain.
"But the paper," says Grabener, "must above all match the layout and the demands of the client or agency." An art magazine has a different requirement than a customer magazine. The use of a paper also depends on the white space of the layout - and on the goal of the publisher/agency, whether the print product wants to go with the flow or rather stand out. According to the results of the study, readers judge print products more as a whole and tend to perceive paper subconsciously, while experts tend to get lost in the details. For this reason, it is ideal if the paper supplier is also involved in the evaluation of a paper, relaunch or new concept, in addition to the agency and the print shop. The findings of the study should also help M-real's customers to optimize not only the print quality but also the color management of the magazine titles.
From the results, the company has developed a study toolbox that M-real uses for its customer consultations. It contains information on which layout is suitable for which magazine - or even when finishing/varnishing is useful.
M-realThe paper producer M-real
is part of the Finnish Metsäliitto Group, the 10th largest forest industry group in the world. For its part, the Metsäliitto Group is owned by 130,000 private forest owners who own 12.6 million hectares of forest (annual sales: approximately 8.6 billion euros). In addition to wood supply, wood products and pulp production, Metsäliitto's most important business area is the manufacture of fine paper, board and specialty papers - collectively known as M-real.M-real generates sales of just over 5 billion euros with around 15,000 employees. The M-real Biberist mill in the canton of Solothurn is one of the 29 factories spread across Europe. In addition to paper and board production, M-real is also active in paper trading through the Map Merchant Group company; however, the Map Merchant Group is not active in Switzerland.
40 years of M-real KirkniemiLocated not far from Helsinki, the
Kirkniemi, three paper machines produce coated papers for heatset web offset printing. The production capacity of the machines is 730,000 tons per year, making M-real Kirkniemi the mill with by far the largest capacity within M-real. Paper machine 3 - internally called Gallery Queen - started up in 1996 and was the largest paper machine in the world at the time. It produces coated magazine papers at a speed of up to 1500 m/minute. The hall in which the machine is housed is around 500 meters long. Only "Galerie" papers are produced in Kirkniemi, which are available in grammages from 36 to 360 g/m2. The latest addition to the Galerie family, Galerie Fine, is also celebrating an anniversary this year: a decade of Fine.
Jürgen Franck
