Replacing a plastic laminate with paper sounds like a material decision.

Choose a barrier paper.

Put it on the existing flow wrapper.

Start producing paper packs.

For confectionery manufacturers, the reality is considerably more complicated.

Paper does not stretch, fold, seal or move through a horizontal packaging machine in exactly the same way as conventional flexible film.

The barrier still has to protect the chocolate or confectionery product.

The pack still has to form correctly around the product.

The longitudinal and cross seals still have to close reliably.

The paper cannot crease or tear excessively at production speed.

And if a brand owner already has millions invested in packaging equipment, the new substrate ideally has to work without replacing the entire line.

That is the engineering problem behind a partnership between Sappi Europe and Syntegon Technology.

There is one important date correction first.

This is not a newly announced 2026 collaboration.

Sappi and Syntegon announced their strategic partnership for confectionery packaging in February 2021. At the time, they reported that an unnamed chocolate producer had converted one product from conventional packaging to Sappi paper after fitting Syntegon’s paper-ON-form retrofit kit to existing machinery.

Five years later, however, the project remains relevant.

Syntegon’s current sustainability material still promotes the Sappi partnership and says its paper-ON-form retrofit has now been installed for numerous customers.

That changes the story.

The important lesson is no longer that one chocolate bar can be wrapped in paper.

It is this:

If fiber-based flexible packaging is going to replace more conventional laminates, paper producers cannot develop the material in isolation and machine builders cannot treat every new paper like another roll of film.

The Packaging Industry Has Focused Heavily on the Material

Much of the paperization discussion starts with substrate development.

Can paper provide an oxygen barrier?

A water-vapour barrier?

Grease resistance?

Aroma protection?

Heat or cold sealability?

Can it remain recyclable after those functions are added?

Those are legitimate questions, and Sappi has spent years developing functional flexible papers around them.

Its current portfolio includes papers such as Guard Pro OHS and Guard Pro OHG with integrated functional varnishes providing combinations of oxygen, water-vapour, grease, mineral-oil and aroma barriers, depending on the grade. Sappi also markets these materials as suitable for direct food contact and recyclable through the paper waste stream.

But solving the material specification is only one half of the conversion.

A technically recyclable barrier paper is commercially useless to a confectionery producer if the existing packaging line cannot run it reliably.

That is where the Sappi-Syntegon collaboration becomes more interesting.

Paper Does Not Behave Like Plastic Film

A horizontal flow wrapper was historically optimized around the mechanical characteristics of flexible packaging films.

Those materials can offer combinations of:

flexibility,

controlled extensibility,

tear resistance,

surface smoothness,

and predictable sealing behavior.

Paper brings a different mechanical profile.

Depending on basis weight, fiber orientation, coating and moisture, it may be more sensitive to sharp forming geometry.

It can crease.

It can crack.

It can tear.

And unlike a flexible polymer film, it cannot necessarily accommodate the same stresses around a forming shoulder without visible damage.

Syntegon’s paper-ON-form system addresses precisely that interface.

The company says the retrofit uses a dedicated forming unit and sealing jaws designed to shape paper without creasing or tearing it. The system can be configured for specific pack dimensions and material characteristics.

That detail reveals something important about material substitution.

Sometimes replacing the packaging material requires changing the machine before it requires changing the product.

A Retrofit Changes the Economics of Paperization

The ability to retrofit existing machines may be more commercially important than the paper itself.

Large confectionery manufacturers already operate installed fleets of high-speed horizontal flow wrappers.

Those machines represent significant capital investment.

If switching one SKU from plastic laminate to paper required replacing an entire packaging line, the business case could deteriorate rapidly.

A retrofit changes that equation.

Instead of:

new material + new packaging machine

the investment can potentially become:

new material + modification of existing machine.

Syntegon says paper-ON-form can be integrated into new equipment or retrofitted to older Syntegon machines. It also says different barrier papers and conventional packaging materials can be processed on the same machine.

For a brand owner, that flexibility matters.

Few large confectionery businesses will convert every product and every market to paper simultaneously.

A machine capable of handling multiple packaging-material formats potentially allows the transition to happen SKU by SKU.

That can reduce the commercial risk of material substitution.

But “Same Machine” Does Not Mean “No Process Development”

This is where supplier messaging needs qualification.

Syntegon has previously said the paper-ON-form technology allows cold-sealable paper to run without restrictions on speed or format and that early field applications demonstrated comparable output performance.

Those are supplier-reported results.

They should not be converted into a universal claim that any paper can replace any laminate at identical speed on any flow wrapper.

Syntegon itself emphasizes material testing and application-specific configuration.

That is more realistic.

A converter changing material still needs to evaluate:

paper stiffness;

coefficient of friction;

forming behavior;

seal chemistry;

seal pressure;

dwell conditions;

pack geometry;

barrier performance;

and the product’s required shelf life.

Even two barrier papers that look similar on a technical data sheet may behave differently on the same machine.

That is why the partnership combines Sappi’s material knowledge with Syntegon’s machine testing.

The difficult part is not making either component work individually.

It is defining a material-machine operating window in which both work together repeatedly.

Seal Performance May Be More Important Than the Paper Story

The Sappi-Syntegon work has particularly focused on cold-seal applications.

That is important because a confectionery wrapper is not successful simply because it can be folded around a chocolate bar.

It needs a reliable seal.

A paper structure can have excellent environmental credentials and attractive printability, but if the seal leaks, opens in distribution or creates excessive rejection on the line, it has failed as packaging.

Syntegon’s retrofit includes customized sealing jaws specifically intended to support paper-based cold-seal packaging at high production speeds.

This is the part of paper substitution that consumers rarely see.

The visible change is plastic to paper.

The engineering work happens in millimetres around the seal.

And once production moves into millions of packs, a small deterioration in seal reliability can become a large manufacturing problem.

Product Protection Still Determines Whether Paper Is Possible

Sappi’s René Köhler made the most important point in the original collaboration announcement:

product protection comes first.

That principle has not changed.

Confectionery products have different packaging requirements.

The necessary barrier depends on variables including ingredients, fat content, aroma sensitivity, moisture sensitivity, desired shelf life and distribution conditions.

That means the correct question is not:

“Can chocolate be packed in paper?”

Some chocolate products already are.

The better question is:

“What barrier does this particular product need for this shelf life in this distribution system?”

Only after that is known can the supplier determine whether a paper solution is technically appropriate.

Sappi’s current functional-paper portfolio illustrates this segmentation.

Guard Pro OHS, for example, combines mineral-oil, oxygen and water-vapour barriers with grease resistance and heat sealability. Guard Pro OHG adds high-barrier properties including aroma protection and is marketed as being based on more than 80% renewable sources.

Not every confectionery product requires every one of those properties.

And adding unnecessary barrier can add unnecessary cost and complexity.

The objective should be the minimum structure that reliably protects the product, not the maximum barrier technically available.

“No Lamination” Does Not Mean “Uncoated Paper”

This is another technical distinction worth keeping clear.

The original Sappi-Syntegon material says the barrier papers can eliminate the need for additional lamination.

That can easily be misunderstood as saying the package is simply untreated paper.

It is not.

Sappi’s functional papers achieve their performance through integrated functional varnishes or barrier coatings.

For example, Guard Pro OHS is described as a machine-glazed bleached kraft paper with a functional varnish on the reverse side.

That is an important innovation.

Instead of making a separate paper-film laminate, barrier functionality is integrated into the paper structure.

But the sustainability conversation should remain technically accurate.

The relevant comparison is:

functional coated paper versus a conventional multilayer laminate.

Not:

pure paper versus plastic.

That distinction will become increasingly important as recyclability criteria become more rigorous.

“Recyclable in the Paper Stream” Is a Claim That Will Face a Harder Test

Sappi currently describes several Guard grades as mono-material and recyclable in the paper waste stream.

That is the company’s current product claim.

It should not automatically be interpreted as a guarantee of future PPWR classification.

Under the EU Packaging and Packaging Waste Regulation, packaging recyclability will move toward formal design-for-recycling performance grades A, B and C.

The European Commission is required to establish the detailed design-for-recycling criteria by January 1, 2028.

From 2030, packaging will have to meet the applicable design-for-recycling requirements, with material-specific assessment covering the full packaging unit. From 2035, recycled-at-scale performance will also become part of the calculation.

And PPWR explicitly identifies barriers and coatings as factors that can make recycling more difficult and therefore must be considered in design-for-recycling criteria.

That does not mean coated barrier paper will fail.

It means “paper” alone will not settle the recyclability question.

The coating chemistry, coating level, repulping yield and effect on the recovered fiber stream will matter.

This is exactly why integrated material-machine projects need a third participant in the conversation:

the recycling system.

Paperization Has Three Qualification Gates, Not One

For confectionery packaging, a paper replacement effectively needs to pass three different tests.

First comes the product test.

Does the paper preserve the confectionery product for the required shelf life?

Then comes the machine test.

Can it form and seal at an economically acceptable speed and waste rate?

Then comes the end-of-life test.

Can the resulting package be sorted and recycled effectively in the intended paper stream?

Passing only one is not enough.

A paper with excellent recyclability but insufficient moisture barrier fails.

A paper with superb barrier performance that tears at the forming shoulder fails.

A material that runs perfectly but interferes substantially with paper recycling creates another problem.

The successful packaging structure sits where those requirements overlap.

That is why the Sappi-Syntegon model matters more than either company’s individual product.

Machinery Suppliers Are Becoming Part of Materials Development

Historically, the roles were relatively clear.

Paper mills manufactured packaging material.

Packaging-machine companies manufactured machinery.

Brand owners purchased both.

The growth of new fiber-based flexible structures is making those boundaries less useful.

Sappi needs to know how its paper behaves on commercial equipment.

Syntegon needs to understand new substrates before customers install them.

And brand owners need the package to work without becoming the test laboratory themselves.

Syntegon now offers dedicated material-testing and consulting services in which packaging materials are evaluated under conditions intended to approximate customer production.

That is a structural change in the packaging-equipment business.

Machine suppliers increasingly sell more than machines.

They are becoming material-qualification partners.

For paper producers trying to enter flexible-packaging applications historically served by polymer film, that relationship may be essential.

This Is Also Why Some Paper Replacements Fail After a Successful Lab Test

A barrier-paper sample can look excellent in laboratory evaluation.

OTR is acceptable.

WVTR is acceptable.

Grease resistance passes.

Seal strength appears adequate.

Repulpability looks encouraging.

Then the roll reaches the customer’s factory.

At 500 packs per minute, another problem appears.

The paper cracks at a fold.

Dust accumulates.

The material does not track consistently.

Seals require a different process window.

Print or coating rubs.

Reject rates increase.

The laboratory did not necessarily get anything wrong.

It simply tested a different part of the problem.

Industrial packaging is a system qualification exercise.

That is why actual machine trials are so important before a brand announces a material conversion.

Speed Is Only One Manufacturing KPI

The original Sappi-Syntegon case emphasized that paper could be introduced without sacrificing packaging speed or overall equipment effectiveness.

That is commercially attractive.

But published information from the unnamed chocolate project does not provide:

the exact machine speed before and after conversion;

waste percentage;

changeover duration;

seal-rejection rate;

material cost;

downtime;

energy consumption;

or complete OEE data.

So it would be inappropriate to present the project as quantified proof that paper and conventional laminate always have identical production economics.

The next generation of paper-conversion case studies needs more data.

For a production manager, “it ran successfully” is useful.

Far more useful would be:

packs per minute, percentage waste, mean seal defects, changeover time and total packaging cost per thousand saleable packs.

Those numbers determine whether paper substitution moves from sustainability pilot to normal procurement.

Retrofit Capability Could Become a Major Competitive Advantage

This is where Syntegon’s approach has broader implications.

Europe already has a huge installed base of packaging machinery.

Replacing all of it simply because packaging materials change would be economically unrealistic.

So the transition toward recyclable mono-material plastics and functional papers will depend heavily on whether existing equipment can be adapted.

Syntegon’s current platform reflects both routes.

For paper, it offers paper-ON-form.

For temperature-sensitive mono-material films, it promotes technologies such as Amplified Heat Sealing to control thermal input.

That demonstrates something important.

Sustainable packaging regulation does not necessarily point toward one winning material.

It creates demand for machines capable of handling a wider and faster-changing material portfolio.

For equipment manufacturers, substrate flexibility may therefore become as commercially important as maximum machine speed.

A Brand May Need Plastic and Paper on the Same Machine

This is another reason the ability to switch material matters.

Not every product will move to paper.

Even within one confectionery company, different products can have different barrier and mechanical requirements.

A chocolate tablet may be a feasible paper candidate.

Another product with a different fat content, geometry, shelf-life requirement or distribution environment may still require a different structure.

Geographic markets can also differ in recycling infrastructure and packaging economics.

So rather than imagining a factory that makes one permanent transition from film to paper, the more realistic future may be material-flexible production.

Monday: conventional structure.

Tuesday: recyclable mono-material film.

Wednesday: barrier paper.

The machine that can handle all three without lengthy rebuilding gives the brand more options.

Syntegon says paper-ON-form allows barrier papers and conventional materials to be processed on the same machine.

If that flexibility can be maintained at commercial efficiency, it may be one of the retrofit’s strongest advantages.

The 2021 Partnership Looks More Relevant in 2026 Than It Did Then

When Sappi and Syntegon announced the collaboration in 2021, European packaging regulation was still developing toward what eventually became PPWR.

Today the direction is much clearer.

PPWR requires packaging to become recyclable under harmonized design-for-recycling criteria.

By 2030, packaging will need to achieve at least a qualifying A, B or C recyclability performance grade, with anything below 70% considered technically non-recyclable under the framework. From 2038, grade C packaging will no longer be sufficient for placement on the market.

For paper producers, that creates opportunity.

Brand owners are actively examining fiber alternatives to some difficult-to-recycle structures.

But it also raises the bar.

A paper replacement cannot simply look more sustainable.

It needs to function.

It needs to run.

And increasingly, it will need to demonstrate recycling performance under a harmonized regulatory methodology.

That makes collaboration between material and machinery suppliers less of a marketing exercise and more of an industrial necessity.

Paper Producers Should Stop Selling Only a Reel

This may be the bigger lesson for Sappi and other specialty-paper producers.

When entering traditional plastic-film applications, the real product is no longer just the paper.

The customer needs:

the paper specification;

barrier performance;

seal recommendation;

machine settings;

forming guidance;

recyclability evidence;

food-contact documentation;

and technical support during trials.

In other words, the paper producer increasingly needs to sell an application package.

That is particularly true where the customer is being asked to replace a structure that has been optimized for decades.

Polymer laminates did not become reliable confectionery packaging overnight.

Paper alternatives should not be expected to do so either.

The successful suppliers will probably be those willing to go onto the customer’s packaging line and solve the conversion problem with them.

The Next Breakthrough Is Not Another Barrier Paper

The flexible-paper industry already has increasingly sophisticated materials.

The harder question is how many of them can move from product-development samples into billions of commercially packed units.

That transition requires a different type of innovation.

Not another impressive laboratory barrier value.

Not another paper-versus-plastic marketing comparison.

But repeatable operation.

The pack has to form correctly.

The seal has to hold.

The product has to survive its shelf life.

Waste has to remain economically acceptable.

The machine needs to reach the customer’s output requirement.

And the finished package has to work in the recycling system.

Sappi and Syntegon recognized that problem back in 2021.

The fact that Syntegon is still promoting the partnership in 2026—and now says paper-ON-form has been installed for numerous customers—suggests that the underlying model has lasted longer than the original announcement.

That may ultimately be more important than the first chocolate package they produced together.

Paper substitution in flexible packaging will not be won at the paper mill alone. It will be won at the point where paper, coating, sealing technology, machinery, product requirements and recycling infrastructure all meet.

For confectionery producers considering a switch, the first question therefore should not be:

“Which paper should we buy?”

It should be:

“Which paper can protect our product, run on our installed line at an acceptable OEE and waste rate, and still meet the recycling requirements that will apply when this package reaches the market?”

If a supplier cannot answer all three parts, the material substitution is not finished.

Last Updated on 10/09/2026 by Jota Machinery