The new 37gsm version of Uniq is made at the Swedish group’s Braviken and Hallsta mills and has already been tested by a number of European printers.

Anders Gyllenhammar, vice president for the retail segment at Holmen Paper, said the environmental benefits were “highly relevant” for customers.

“Choosing a low grammage paper means cost savings, but even more important is that you get less weight to transport, and less CO2 emissions, and at the same time you make a more efficient use of the raw material,” he said.

Uniq is used for web offset and gravure printing, and is targeted at end uses including magazines, catalogues and direct mail.

Regarding the test projects, Gyllenhammar added: “Holmen Uniq 37gsm was used for printing of the normal circulation of some different TV magazines as well as retail advertising for food and supermarket chains in Europe. Our technical support was invited to follow the printing in Covid-19 safe manners, in person or in digital contact, and they could also make a thorough follow-up afterwards together with print production managers.”

Holmen said that printed products could become up to 16% lighter but with the same thickness and that its opacity was “unmatched” in low grammages. 

“When reviewing the technical reports from the trial print runs I noted that the print result on the 37gsm paper in many aspects could not be distinguished from the regular 39gsm paper”, stated Linus Lehnberg, technical support manager at Holmen Paper.

The Uniq grade was launched in 2015 and the papermaker said it had since proved to be one of its most popular products thanks to its lightness, bulk and smoothness. The range of grammages is now 37gm, 39gsm, 43gsm, 47gsm and 50gsm.

A glossier version, Holmen Uniq Extra, is also available in 47gsm.

All Holmen’s products are made from 100% virgin fibre, which is traceable to Swedish forests.