Alongside that rich heritage, the focus today is very much on the future for the mill, which has benefited from a major reinvestment programme of some €25m (£21.4m) to improve quality and sustainability.

As has been detailed in the pages of Printweek, in recent years the industry’s paper manufacturers have been battling turbulent market conditions and a dramatic decline in demand for some types of paper.

As a result many mills and paper machines have been closed, or converted to produce packaging or other materials, and the European paper production landscape has changed dramatically with millions of tonnes of capacity for graphic arts papers taken out of the equation.

But papermaking remains a huge business, and a visit to Gratkorn makes the scale of the undertaking apparent. It’s a huge mill with an enormous site that extends to around one million square metres, and includes its own daily block train.

Gratkorn produces 250,000 tonnes of pulp per year for the mill’s own use, consuming some 1.2m cubic metres of wood – 60% of which is from sawmill by-products, and 40% thinning trees.

PM9 at the site has capacity of 220,000tpa and, since 2021, has produced wet-glue and self-adhesive label papers, with a big project just being completed to add the Parade Label wet strength label papers to its output. These papers are alkali- resistant and therefore require different chemistry.

This also necessitates a sophisticated production system because waste – or ‘broke’, which goes back into the system – from wet strength and non-wet strength papers must be strictly separated.

Gratkorn’s other line, the massive PM11 machine, makes Magno paper in jumbo reels that are 8.5m-wide and weigh 80 tonnes.

After additional coating the jumbo reel can weigh more than 100 tonnes.

Seeing the scale of the operation at the mill is a reminder of the hugely technical and demanding processes that go into making high-quality papers in large volumes.

Around 20% of production at Gratkorn is reels, with much of its output sheeted and as such the site also runs 11 Bielomatik sheeters.

Safety, quality and sustainability are the key drivers for mill director Peter Putz, who oversees a team of more than 1,000 employees that work around the clock at the site.

Gratkorn is Sappi’s flagship mill for its Magno range of high-quality coated woodfree papers, although importantly the group has also developed what it describes as a “carouselling” production system whereby, to meet demand, it can also produce Magno using its other mills in Europe to the same exacting standards if required – availability being a top priority for customers.

Market demand is, of course, like so much of modern life increasingly unpredictable.

European sales director for commercial print John Clinton notes, dryly, that “a paper mill is not a fun place when it’s quiet” and as such the Sappi team devotes considerable resources to analysing the market and to advocating for print – including a range of guides and publications targeted at marketers showcasing print’s effectiveness and sustainability credentials.

“What we’ve tried to do with our sales and marketing approach is to engage very heavily with our customers and the users behind our customers – people who use media for advertising or communication – to make the case for paper with case studies,” he explains.

Sappi is also working with printers to help them with stock management, a thorny issue that can tie up much-needed cash.

“For example, in studying a lot of printer businesses we find that their inventory levels are too high, that they are carrying too many different materials and too much of different sizes,” Clinton says.

“We believe that with discussion and persuasion we can make a substantial difference to the cost of a printer’s business by changing some of the parameters used. And we have the resources to help our customers to do that,” he notes.

Sustainability drive

As the Sappi team points out, the future of paper manufacturing is increasingly sophisticated, and the amount of effort and investment being devoted to sustainability is enormous.

The group has recently celebrated achieving the top EcoVadis rating across all of its global manufacturing regions for the sixth consecutive year.

It has completed a number of decarbonisation projects – including switching the boiler at Gratkorn from coal to renewable biomass energy – and has 80 projects underway across all its mills running up to 2025, and more to come as it refines its fresh decarbonisation plan for the 2025-2030 period.

“We report CO₂ emissions per tonne of paper produced and after these big projects we can see the CO₂ reduction,” says Sappi Europe sustainability specialist Sandrina Machado.

From its 2019 baseline the target is to reduce specific emissions by 25% by 2025, and by 41.5% by 2030.

“It’s super-exciting to see these results, and of course it’s a continuous work,” she adds

It all means customers can be confident they are buying a product made with well-managed raw materials, Machado notes, with Sappi’s suppliers – and there are thousands of them – required to sign up to its Code of Conduct.

Clinton has spent decades working in the paper industry and has seen many changes during his career. He remains enthusiastic about the future potential and the role Sappi can play in shaping it: “It’s an amazing industry based on using renewable resources.”