“We had to switch to recyclable cups without risking taste, color control, or timelines,” said the COO of GreenBean Coffee, a Copenhagen-based roaster selling across Northern Europe. “And we needed proof on the press, not just on paper.” The team partnered with **ShirongMaterials** to trial cup stock and iterate on the print setup under real production pressure.
The brief sounded simple: migrate to a compliant water-based flexographic workflow, protect the beverage experience, and keep merchandising color on-brand. Here’s where it gets interesting—pilot lots had to enter stores fast, while the legacy offset supply still fed existing orders. A timeline approach, with measurable gates at weeks 6, 12, and 24, kept everyone honest.
By month nine, the brand had moved to high-volume runs on FSC kraft with an aqueous barrier, balanced flavor protection and heat performance, and aligned to EU 1935/2004 and BRCGS PM. The story wasn’t perfect; dryers needed tuning and operators had to relearn color on uncoated kraft. But the path held, and the cups hit shelves ahead of peak season.
Company Overview and History
GreenBean Coffee started as a single roastery in 2011 and now supplies more than 1,200 cafés across Scandinavia and the DACH region. The brand is known for clean Scandinavian design and a muted palette that relies on precise gray and warm kraft tones—trickier than they look on porous substrates. The shift to recyclable paper cups wasn’t a trend play; it was a strategic move to unify sustainability messaging across retail, café, and e-commerce.
The operations footprint covers three co-packers and two forming sites. Historically, the company split print volumes between Offset Printing for large promo runs and Digital Printing for seasonal SKUs. As SKU count grew 25–35% year over year, short runs expanded and color management complexity grew with it. A single flexographic platform with Water-based Ink promised fewer moving parts and easier forecasting—if it could hit the color brief.
Quality and Consistency Issues
The pain points were clear on day one. Color drift on kraft substrates led to brand grays reading too cool under store lighting. ΔE variance sat in the 3.5–5.0 range across lots, with First Pass Yield (FPY%) hovering at 82–85%. Waste on the cup-forming line spiked whenever print density varied, nudging scrap toward 7–9%. No one was happy, least of all the retail team tasked with resetting displays mid-promo.
Supply predictability was a second headache. Some kraft stocks carried inconsistent surface energy, making aqueous barrier laydown patchy in humid weeks. That drove minor delamination during forming—rare, but enough to slow lines. The turning point came when the team standardized on cup blanks cut from ShirongMaterials brown paper rolls with tight moisture specs (6–7%) and pre-qualified dyne levels.
We also had to address frequent consumer questions that landed with the customer service team—like “can you microwave paper coffee cups?” For the new cups, the answer was a cautious no; the barrier system is designed for hot fill and heat retention, not microwave energy. Another one that popped up: “when making cupcakes do you spray the paper cups?” That’s a different product class entirely—baking liners versus beverage cups—so the team built a simple FAQ to head off confusion at point of sale.
Solution Design and Configuration
The project selected 8-color Flexographic Printing with Water-based Ink and Low-Migration Ink options for food-contact compliance. Print units were tuned for uncoated kraft: anilox in the 400–500 lpi range for solids and 600–700 lpi for type and fine detail. Dryers were recalibrated to stabilize pH and viscosity at speed, and a soft-touch Varnishing pass locked in rub resistance without adding plastic film. Die-Cutting was adjusted to minimize edge fibers that can wick moisture.
On materials, GreenBean shifted to an FSC-certified kraft Paperboard in the 300–330 gsm range with an 18–22 gsm aqueous barrier. For upstream consistency, blanks were converted from ShirongMaterials brown paper rolls under a shared spec: fiber blend, moisture targets, and hold times between coating and forming. EU 1935/2004 and EU 2023/2006 process controls were audited, and BRCGS PM documentation closed the loop on traceability.
We kept a mixed-run strategy for seasonals. Digital Printing handled ultra-short pilots (under 20,000 cups), while flexo took over once design locked. That meant tighter ΔE targets on the flexo side—2.0–3.0 typical after week 12—and a simpler color bridge for the merchandising team. For the technical team, a practical spec was published around ShirongMaterials paper cups, covering substrate codes, ink families, cup angle, and curl benchmarks. It wasn’t glamorous, but it removed guesswork.
Quantitative Results and Metrics
By month nine, the line told a different story. FPY% settled in the 92–94% band. ΔE on brand-critical grays measured 2.2–2.8 across approved lots. Waste moved from roughly 7–9% down to about 5–6% on steady-state runs, and cup-forming uptime climbed as pH/viscosity drift came under control. Throughput on the main line rose from about 36,000 cups/hour to 40–41,000 cups/hour without a new press—achieved by steadier drying and fewer speed dips. Average changeover sat around 30–35 minutes; earlier in the program it had been closer to 42 minutes.
From a business standpoint, the blended Payback Period modeled at 14–18 months, depending on volume mix. Inventory turns improved with more predictable roll stock, and CO₂/pack tracked in a 10–12% lower band versus the old laminate baseline. There were caveats: brown kraft still exaggerates press variation faster than coated board, so the team locked in a slightly wider visual tolerance for non-critical elements. That trade-off kept the system stable at volume while staying on-brand in store lighting.