Oat drink packaging

Oatly AB Sweden

Shipping beverage in paper packaging in containers overseas for several weeks, between continents and climate zones can be tricky. To improve this handling for Oatly I lead a cross functional project which included improving the design and material of the secondary packaging to manage these conditions, a close co-operation with internal procurement and the external supplier Billerud.

With this new design and material, we raised the durability of the packaging to manage expected conditions, but we also reached a lower CO2 footprint and price in comparison to equal paper material produced in Asia, likewise decrease the water consumption in conversion. Also, the business case was unique and new thinking. More to find at https://www.billerud.com/insights/all/oatly-case

When I started, Oatly did not have any packaging team so one interesting part was to contribute to how the packaging organization should look like and to create an Oatly packaging strategy together with this new team.

Before this team was in place, I developed a packaging process that became the base for the packaging structure in the Oatly global PLM system, but also the base for the coming global packaging process. Together with implementing the PLM packaging structure, all packaging documentation were collected and verified to secure the system. I have also worked with the packaging requirements for new productions sites as storage conditions, packaging- and pallet flow etc. when building a new factory and to define standards for packaging test- and verifications.

As a part of this great packaging team, I also handled and supported packaging development projects and problem-solving issues, both in Europe and in Asia.