Cutting Costs with C☆iFilm® Coating Starch

Papermakers face strong economic challenges. Market demand for graphic paper is declining, but production costs continue to rise. As a market leader in coating starches, Cargill has expanded its portfolio of paper starch coatings, focusing on cost-efficiency and sustainability to help its industry partners stay competitive.

A primary component in paper coatings is latex, an expensive oil-based binding ingredient. While supplementing latex with starches is common in the industry, stability and consistency issues have prevented customers from completely replacing it. To overcome these limitations, Cargill's starches and sweeteners business in Europe developed C☆iFilm®, a proprietary product line of coating starches made with environmentally friendly materials.

The new products successfully replace latex binders, while maintaining superior stability and paper quality. This results in significant savings, ranging from US $120,000 to $1.2 million per customer, per year.

Beyond financial benefits, the new product line’s use of renewable materials meets the sustainability demands of customers by decreasing the latex component in the coating formulation.

“We want customers to have faith that Cargill is the company most likely to deliver the next good idea to them.”
—Greg Page, CEO of Cargill

Since 2012, C☆iFilm coating starch has helped the industry at large reduce total production costs and increase sustainability. But it is just one of many steps that Cargill is taking in its commitment to help paper customers stay competitive in an ever-changing marketplace. 

[image caption] Cargill employees Dogan Sivasligil (left) and Timo Makarainen receive the 2012 Achievers Circle Award, applauding their innovative C☆iFilm solution.