ITOCHU Corporation (headquartered in Minato-ku, Tokyo; Keita Ishii, President & COO; hereinafter “ITOCHU”) announced today that PAPTIC, a new type of material developed in Finland and handled by ITOCHU, was selected by ROSE GALLERY as the packaging material for its limited edition Mother's Day rose bouquets.

PAPTIC is a new type of material made of sustainable wood fiber developed by VTT Technical Research Centre of Finland Ltd. (VTT). It has huge potential as a packaging material which is flexible and strong and yet can be recycled along with paper, helping reduce environmental impact. Since acquiring shares in Metsa Fibre Oy in 2012, ITOCHU has made total investment of around 70 billion yen in Finland and, because of this, was introduced to Paptic Ltd (hereinafter "Paptic") by the Commercial Section of the Embassy of Finland in 2020 and is now operating as Paptic's strategic marketing partner in Japan. PAPTIC has been used in various applications in Europe, including the carrier bags (alternative to paper bags) of a high-end department store and the primary packaging (alternative to plastic) of Finland's leading food and confectionery company, and has in all instances been highly rated for helping reduce the environmental impact of the previously used packaging material.
(In January 2021, PAPTIC won the WorldStar award, an international award for innovative packaging solutions organized annually by the World Packaging Organization (WPO). https://www.worldstar.org/winners_detail/304/2021/%20/%20/Finland/ )

ROSE GALLERY, Japan's only luxury rose retailer with its main branch in Ginza, recently decided to use PAPTIC because there is a high affinity between ROSE GALLERY's concept of further strengthening everlasting relationships with family, friends, business associates and other important people through the power of "flowers" and PAPTIC, a sustainable, reusable material, and because using PAPTIC which is recycled as paper, is in line with ROSE GALLERY's desire to reduce its environmental impact. Other more functional factors in the decision were that the combination of red roses of the highest quality and PAPTIC's superior texture creates an even greater impression of luxury and that PAPTIC feels nicer to the touch than the previously used packaging material and makes no noise when wrapping and carrying flowers.

ITOCHU has set "Contribute to and strengthen initiatives for the SDGs" as one of the Basic Policies in its next medium-term management plan, and will continue contributing the development of a sustainable society by marketing eco-friendly materials such as PAPTIC to reduce environmental impacts in the future.