No Swedish Christmas is complete without Aladdin – a classic chocolate box whose journey starts in the UK and ends under Christmas trees across Sweden.
The Aladdin box is made from Incada Silk, a multi-layered paperboard that is produced by Iggesund Paperboard in Workington, in the north of England. And at the factory production is stepping up ready for the festive season. From Workington, the paperboard is shipped to Iggesund Paperboard's customer Å&R Carton, but sales manager Bengt Johansson also sees the chocolate producer Marabou as his customer.
"There is a huge amount of openness and trust between us, and we have a good dialogue with both Å&R Carton and Kraft Foods, who own the Marabou brand," he explains. "We often discuss with them how we can develop the paperboard for improved printing and runnability in the machines. That's important since the production and packing are fully automated. It's also equally important that the chocolates don't pick up any other flavours along the production chain."
The Aladdin box dates back to the late 1930s and Iggesund Paperboard's partnership with Å&R Carton and Kraft Foods also goes back a long way, to at least the 1970s or 80s, according to Bengt, who has been around for the past ten years himself.
"They are important customers of ours, and of course Incada Silk is used in other chocolate packaging too," he concludes.