Woodmansterne is gearing up to supply an initial 200 of its greeting card designs (from various ranges) to retailers using a Seal-Close peelable label to keep the card, envelope and insert together until point of purchase, thereby eradicating the need for the use of cellowrapping.
As reported on PG Buzz, Woodmansterne has been working closely with greeting card printer Windles to develop the alternative to cellobags.
As Paul Woodmansterne, managing director of Woodmansterne told PG Buzz: “We asked all of our suppliers to work with us to come up with ways of us further improving on the environmental front. Bruce [Podmore, md of Windles] got the bit between his teeth and so the Seal-Close label came about.”
The new Seal-Close peelable label is made from a fully recyclable paper-based substrate that can be printed on in all colours with a publisher’s branding or other information. The tackiness of the label is strong enough to hold quality board together while not leaving any residue when peeled off.
“As an industry we have a collective responsibility to minimise our use of single-use plastics, but we also need to be able to offer consumers and retailers an attractive and practical way of buying and displaying a greeting card ‘unit’, that keeps the card, envelope and, in our case, an insert too, together. Seal-Close offers a solution and one that we hope others in the industry will adopt too,” said Paul. “We also needed to come up with a solution that would work for all retailers, eradicating the need for publishers to supply their cards in different ways, which is so wasteful.”
With some final adjustments to be made at Windles on the machine which will facilitate the Seal-Close being applied mechanically, it is anticipated that the first Woodmansterne cards using Seal-Close will be ready to go into stores by the start of March.
Paul stresses however that he hopes other publishers will also adopt using Seal-Close and that “it will become the norm” in the greeting card industry, whether applied machine or by hand.
“We do not ‘own’ this, and nor would we want it to be confined just to Woodmansterne. None of us owns this planet and we all need to do all we can to safeguard it,” he stressed.
Woodmansterne has also demonstrated an equally inclusive approach when it came up with the more friendly ‘Recycle Me’ phrase to be used on the back of its cards that has now been recognised by WRAP and is available for all publishers to use on greeting cards.
Top: The Seal-Close label will mean that the industry can better care for our green and pleasant land, as depicted on this National Trust greeting card from Woodmansterne.
