Ensocoat™ 60th Anniversary – a Piece of Board-making History
Ensocoat™, Stora Enso’s flagship luxury packaging and graphical board, is celebrating its 60th anniversary. Since its inception in 1964, Ensocoat has evolved to become the go-to choice for brand owners seeking premium packaging material, and its journey is a testament to Stora Enso’s commitment to quality consistency and improvement. Throughout its long history, Ensocoat has continuously adapted to meet growing market demand for performance. In this article, we explore Ensocoat’s journey and the quality standards that have made it the most luxurious paperboard to date.
Ensocoat is produced at Stora Enso’s Imatra site in Finland on Board Machine (BM) 2. Brown kraftliner production on this line began in 1956, but BM2 was designed from the outset to produce white packaging board to meet growing market demand. In 1963, a new mineral coating machine was introduced at the mill to produce board with a better printing surface. Around the same time, the mill’s birch pulp production capacity was increased, thus creating new opportunities for product development. The first production run of a mineral-coated speciality board was in 1964, signifying the initial steps in the development of Ensocoat.
In the mid‐1970s, BM2 went through several renovations including a new inline section — improvements that elevated quality and efficiency. The line was designated to produce only fully white board for demanding packaging end uses and high‐quality print works, and at the same time, laboratory capabilities were strongly developed. Products intended for graphical end uses were tested for visual appearance and printing properties, such as cleanliness, shade, formation, ink density, and ink drying.
In the 1980s, the capacity of BM2 was increased significantly, and Ensocoat became established in the international market. In 1984, the Imatra site began producing three‐layer board. The multilayer structure was revolutionary as it significantly improved the board’s stiffness, dimensional stability, and strength properties.
Consistent high quality is a specification that customers emphasize most, and more recently, Ensocoat has responded with quality improvements that have focused on whiteness, brightness, bluer shade, improved UV resistance, and better surface smoothness. In 2017, the icy-white shade of Ensocoat was launched, and as a result, an increasing number of world‐class cosmetic and luxury brands choose Ensocoat for their packaging today. Ensocoat has also addressed additional new customer requirements including certifications such as FSC, PEFC, EU Ecolabel, and industrial and home composability.
Quality consistency and continuous improvement have always been at the heart of Stora Enso’s performance. With Ensocoat, our ambition is to achieve the highest quality standards for premium packaging materials and surpass our customers’ expectations for performance. Our most luxurious paperboard to date, Ensocoat by Stora Enso is a whiter canvas for a brighter tomorrow.
