Trailblazing products

Value chains of media and packaging are in transition. The media landscape is rapidly changing and demands set on packaging are continuously increasing. The change can very well be seen as an opportunity, and the changing business environment can be utilized by companies to broaden their service consepts and to re-design the market.

New products are needed by every industry in order to renew their service consepts to serve the customers’ constantly changing needs. New products create opportunities also outside the current business. An example of the latter is the AgriPap -project where a totally new end use for paper is being developed. It is also an example of the strength of multi-disciplinary and cross-industrial approach in innovation process.

Understanding the needs of consumers and the value chain combined with the ability to develop and modify technologies to fulfill them is the strength of VTT. Another asset of VTT is the broad research scope enabling both cross-disciplinary research and experience in building consortia among different industries. In consortia projects it is typical to have partners from the whole value network, i.e. from raw material suppliers to publishers and brand owners. That enables the rapid utilization of new technologies, testing and designing the concept idea together with the potential users and commercialization of new product concepts.

Together with the industrial partners VTT will introduce a “Living Paper Lab”-concept in 2011. Living Paper Lab puts the consumer in focus and helps the industry to test new ideas for products and services related to fibre based products and bring them to the market. Living Paper Lab will be filling the so-called pre-commercial gap that often exists with new product or service ideas which appear to have great potential. By testing the concept in Living Paper Lab, this potential can be revealed and the product or service concept further improved before entering the market.

With the strong technological background and consumer-oriented approach we can serve your company in different stages of your innovation process. On the “Service Consepts and Operating Principles”-page you’ll find more information on the different ways VTT can co-operate with you.

Below you can find more information about a selection of novel product concepts developed or being developed at the moment:

• Replacement of agricultural plastic films by paper: Project Agripap
• Oil Absorbing Paper
• Bioactive Paper
• Hybrid Media in Learning
• Eye Catching Package
• Augmented Reality in Printing and Packaging

For more information in this theme, please contact Anu Seisto (anu.seisto@vtt.fi)