Koepala, a sustainable packaging company providing innovative solutions for on-the-go food, and global chemistry expertise company Kemira (Finland) are pleased to announce a cooperative partnership. This partnership is a result of the recent "Food for Thought" innovation challenge, which Koepala won. The challenge looked for new business models and alternatives to single-use plastics in food packaging. As a result, the two companies started to work collaboratively to test their solutions.

Koepala are a Helsinki based take-out food packaging development company. They innovate, test and seek to commercialize new packaging concepts. The end goal of Koepala's innovation is to reduce the use of single-use plastics in food packaging. One of the unique elements of Koepala's solution is that the packaging is engineered to be flat. It flexes in to a bowl shape to allow ease-of-use. Kemira's chemistry expertise enables this unique design to take shape.

"The cooperation allows us to test our chemistry innovations for renewable food packaging very hands-on," explained Sami Puttonen, Senior Manager at Kemira. "At Koepala, we are driven by our environmental commitments for sustainable, flat and flexible packaging solutions," said Koepala's CEO Janne Asikainen.

The results of the testing are hoped to provide major leaps forward in sustainable packaging. Both organizations are committed to finding a viable solution, which provides value in the form of sustainability, commercial appeal and functionality to all players in the industry.