The Pragmatic Principles Violation Hypothesis (PPVH) and the present approach and the present approach

According to Niemelä-Nyrhinen & Uusitalo (2013) packaging value chain consist of material supplier, packaging supplier, brand owner, wholesaler, retailer and consumer.

Similarly, the containerboard value chain consists of everything from raw material collection to brand owners and retail. Between raw materials and retail, there are value-adding processes such as containerboard production, corrugated board production, Table 5. Advantages and disadvantages of most popular e-commerce packaging

materials.

converting and printing. In this section, the functions of the value chain will be explained.

The containerboard value chain is visualised in figure 16. The highlighted functions of containerboard production, corrugators and box makers can be separate companies, but also integrated, even though they are introduced separately.

Figure 16. Containerboard value chain (Case company 2019).

Containerboard Production

Containerboard is paper that is used in corrugated board production either as liner or fluting (Kirwan 2013, p.314). Liners and flutings can be either recycled or virgin fibre-based (Järvi-Kääriainen & Ollila 2007, p.150; Kirwan 2013, p.326). Fibres can be reused from 4-6 (Korhonen et al. 2018) to 7-8 times (Kirwan 2013, p. 337). However, fibres lose their length in the recycling (Kirwan 2013, p.76), which means that virgin fibre-based containerboard have better properties than recycled fibre-based one (Järvi-Kääriainen &

Ollila 2007, p.153).

The function of the liner is to give strength to the packaging and to act as printing surface (Järvi-Kääriainen & Ollila 2007, p.153). There are two main types of liners in the market;

krafliners and testliners. (Järvi-Kääriainen & Ollila 2007, p.153; Kirwan 2013, p.327).

Krafliners are mainly made of virgin fibres, approximately 70-100% is wood pulp and the rest recycled fibres (Kirwan 2013, p.327; Case company 2019). Kraftliners are ideal for packaging with rigorous demands (higher levels of moisture, bulk containers) due to long fibres (Kirwan 2013, p.327). Kraftliner has good stiffness, bursting strength and surface smoothness and the mostly used grammages are between 80-440 g/m² (Kirwan 2013, p.327; Järvi-Kääriainen & Ollila 2007, p.153) Virgin fibres used in kraftliner are more expensive, than recycled fibres (Twede et al. 2005).

Testliners are made of shorter and recycled fibres (Kirwan 2013, p.327) and they are often produced in grammage range of 125-450/m² (Järvi-Kääriainen & Ollila 2007, p.153). Testliner is suitable for supply chains with no extreme demand, as its strength and stiffness characteristics are inferior to kraftliner. Inferior characteristics can be compensated with higher grammage. (Järvi-Kääriainen & Ollila 2007, p.153). Inks and oils creates impurities for recycled material (Lorenzini et al. 2013). Both kraftliners and testliners can be either brown or white. Properties of liners are strongly dependent on the fibre length and type. Sometimes additives are added in the material to increase its

properties, especially in recycled fibre-based products. Papers that are made of virgin fibre have better humidity resistance. (Kirwan 2013, p.327).

The function of the fluting material is to keep liners in certain distance from each other and to give strength and stiffness to the packaging (Järvi-Kääriainen & Ollila 2007, p.153). Like kraftliner, semi-chemical fluting is mainly made of long virgin fibres and it is suitable for packaging with rigorous demands. The grammage range for SC fluting is typically 105-275 g/m² (Järvi-Kääriainen & Ollila 2007, p.153; Kirwan 2013, p.327).

Recycled based fluting is made of shorter fibres and it is ideal for packaging with less rigorous conditions. The liners and flutings used in corrugated board production are presented in table 6.

After containerboard production, the second step is production of corrugated board. The most common corrugated board structure is double faced corrugated board with two layers of liners which are separated with a wave shaped core called fluting (Isaksson &

Gradin 2009; Neidoni 2015). If one liner and one fluting is used, the product is called single-faced and if two flutings are used in between three liners the product is double-wall. (Neidoni 2015). More layers can be added to increase the corrugated board strength (Kirwan 2013, p. 313). In figure 17, corrugated board types and different flute types are presented. The weight of corrugated board is measured by the combination of liners, fluting and glue (FEFCO & CEPI ContainerBoard 2018). Average corrugated board weight in 2018 has been 505 g/m², which is 5 g/m² less than in 2017 (FEFCO 2018).

Table 6. Containerboard materials.

Figure 17. Corrugated board and flute types (Case company 2019).

Different flute types create characteristics for corrugated board in terms of strength and printability. Fluting can have different height from 0.5-1.2 mm with smallest flutings (N, F, E fluting/micro fluting) to 4.8 mm (A fluting) (FEFCO & CEPI ContainerBoard 2018).

BC fluting type is a double-wall corrugated board structure, which includes both B and C flutings and the height can be up to 7 mm (Järvi-Kääriainen & Ollila 2007, p.152). As well, number of flutings per length (meter) differs being lowest in A fluting (110 per meter), and highest in N, F and E flutings (290-500 per meter). (FEFCO & CEPI ContainerBoard 2018) Small fluting height and higher frequency creates good printability, while big fluting height creates structural strength. The mostly used fluting types according to FEFCO (2018) are B-flute (26%), C-flute (12%) and BC-flute (16%).

The medium of corrugated board is produced by shaping the fluting paper with heat, steam and corrugated rolls. After corrugation, adhesive is applied to the tips of fluting paper, and then it is combined with liner paper. (Kirwan 2013, pp.328-329) In case packaging requires grease or humidity barriers, it can be treated with substances that give additional barrier layer or the corrugated board can be laminated with plastic coating (Järvi-Kääriainen & Ollila 2007, p.153). When corrugated board is produced as flat sheet, it is converted into boxes by converting operations such as cutting, printing, scoring and gluing. Printing can be either pre-printing or post-printing. Pre-printing is done before corrugated board production, and the quality of printing to paper is higher. Post-printing is done to corrugated board. (Kirwan 2013, p.326)

The containerboard and corrugated board and box plants can be either integrated or non-integrated. Most of the containerboard producers are integrated to corrugated board

manufacturing and further into box production. The geographical presence of integrated and non-integrated European corrugating hubs can be seen in figure 18.

Figure 18. European corrugating hubs (Case company 2019).

Brand Owners and Retailers

Retail is process where goods and services are sold to customer. Retailer is any individual who operates business through B&M store or e-commerce platform. In most cases retailers are not selling their own products, but work as intermediaries between manufacturers, distributors and customers. Brand on the other hand does not necessarily need to be involved in direct sales, but to manufacture the product and sell it to retailers.

Both retailers and brand owners can have both e-commerce and B&M sales channels.

In e-commerce value chain, retailers and brand owners need packaging for their products in order to distribute them to customers.