Parent company takes over Pakenso's factory

Norwegian Elopak has been in our kitchens right from the start in 1959. Its roof-top milk packagings – indispensable for any household with children, not least – have made Elopak familiar to generations of milk drinkers in all the Nordic countries.

Enso has owned half the Pakenso conversion plant in Lahtis, with Elopak controlling the other half. In connection with the Stora-Enso merger, the EU competition authorities demanded that Enso dispose of the Pakenso factory. So the natural thing for Elopak was to buy Enso out and continue the operation under the new name of Elofin Oy.

Elopak a.s. belongs to Tidemanns, one of the biggest privately owned industrial groups in Norway. Elopak today is a worldwide manufacturer of packaging systems for liquid foods. The well-known roof-shaped container is used by dairies for packing a variety of milk and yoghurt products, squashes and soups. But it can also be filled with wine, spices and treacle. Elopak has factories in 16 countries and sales offices in 20. Sales last year totalled NOK 3,800 million.

Long-term co-operation

In Finland, Elopak has worked in close collaboration with the Enso paper company, whose cardboard products are used in manufacturing. The actual process of making a milk container involves cutting, blanking and printing, after which the cardboard sheet is folded and packed in piles for delivery to the dairy.

In Finland as in the rest of Europe, Elopak and its main rival, Tetrapak, control about half the market each. Elofin has an annual output of about 700 million packagings, and, says MD Timo Virtanen, can easily raise this to a billion should the occasion demand.

Elofin produces milk and other liquid packagings for the Baltic countries, the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Russia and Croatia as well as for the home market.

Timo Virtanen, who took over as MD last year, reports that Elofin’s integration with the Norwegian parent company has gone off smoothly.

“We operate as an independent enterprise, but we get support and assistance in various matters from the Group management in Norway.”

Environmentally, Timo Virtanen says that Elofin has a track record to be proud of. At the beginning of this year the factory was awarded an ISO standardisation certificate, confirming the rational management of the production process. All waste generated in the course of production is collected and resold as energy or as raw material for other production. One purchaser transforms the waste into shoe soles.