“I was a bit surprised,” UPM Kymmene’s senior researcher Dr. Matti Ristolainen said of the results of a paper chara…
“I was a bit surprised,” UPM Kymmene’s senior researcher Dr. Matti Ristolainen said of the results of a paper characteristics appreciation survey the company launched.
Through its research centre, UPM circulated a survey at the IPEX trade fair 2006 in the UK, in an attempt to gauge how end-users judge paper by its sensory features. In addition to the traditional properties, the consumer panel reviewed also the sound, browsing, posture and overall ‘pleasantness’ of two different paper grades.
Ristolainen was intrigued by findings that indicate 30% of the evaluators weighted easy browsing and posture as the most important paper characteristics. Roughly 60% singled out visual appearance as the most important quality.
The panel used 60 pages of magazines without covers as the test samples. They were RG printed on LW and SC paper grades. The magazines printed on uncoated paper were considered very agreeable to browse and pleasant to read. Those printed on coated paper were weighted by the print quality and gloss.
“The consumer panel test was something new in the paper business,” Ristolainen said. “Therefore, the approach emerged a lot of positive attention among those who participated in the survey.”
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