Europe's leading consumer packaging board producer, Stora Enso, is launching new power brands Cupforma and Trayforma for the cup and tray markets. For the cup market the company seeks growth in promotional and coffee-to-go products, while the main potential in the tray market is in non-food applications. To encourage the design of non-food trays, the company has announced the Trayforma International Design Awards competition.

Stora Enso Consumer Boards has taken on the role as venture capitalist through the purchase of Activation AB. This Swedish company specialises in cd packages and associated packaging machinery. Through such acquisitions, Stora Enso Consumer Boards wants to speed up technological developments and create new product concepts in strong knowledge clusters.

Tray packaging for promoting design companies' activities is now a fast growing business for Stora Enso Consumer Boards. The new Trayforma board range is gaining popularity especially amongst European design groups including leading Finnish fashion house, Marimekko. The fashion company introduced innovative packaging solution for its classic shirt range.

Stora Enso, together with Scandinavian partners, has developed a board-based müsli cereal package that eliminates the need for an additional inside air-tight bag. It is a product concept that guarantees air-tight qualities for such packages. One of the first commercial applications for the new concept has been launched by BioDoc of Sweden for its Magiform Müsli range.

A new innovation centre to focus on packaging R&D, InnoCentre, is founded in Finland by Stora Enso Consumer Boards and Stora Enso Research. It will offer customers new packaging concepts and support the company's ambition of world leadership in launching new packaging products. Operations will start up in summer 2003 and the initial investment in machinery and equipment is EUR 4 million.