Blue is the New Green
Blue checkout receipts? Most people have had one in their hands by now. There are a lot of people to thank for that, and one of them is Ökobon GmbH Managing Director Oliver Unseld, who played a pioneering role in helping Koehler’s sustainable thermal paper, Blue4est®, become widespread. Now he wants to go further and help establish Blue4est® as an environmentally friendly alternative for shipping labels as well.
“At the beginning, no one wanted to hear about the blue paper,” Oliver Unseld recalls while smiling. Unseld is the Managing Director of Ökobon GmbH, which he founded together with his partner, Birgit Feigl, in 2015. Of course, when he talks about blue paper, he is referring to Blue4est®, the innovative thermal paper from Koehler Paper. The fact that the blue checkout receipts have now become part of our daily lives is due in no small part to Unseld and his company. A curious thing, given that he originally had nothing to do with paper. “I sold cash register systems to organic food retail companies,” he says. “Then one day, one of my customers, Mr. Berger from the Biomarkt der Lebenshilfe organic grocery store in Bad Dürkheim, gave me a call.” An employee from a large paper mill had given him some novel receipt paper for testing and he wanted to ask whether Unseld wanted to take a look. “Mr. Berger knew that I had a lot of contacts in the sector and wanted to put me in touch with Koehler.”
That piqued Unseld’s curiosity. Together with his partner, he paid a visit to the papermaker’s headquarters in Oberkirch after receiving an invitation. There they learned just how special the innovative thermal paper was. “I’d already heard that thermal paper contains problematic substances,” Unseld mentions. And he is right, as conventional thermal paper uses a chemical reaction to produce the black color on receipts. This requires the use of color developers, of which Bisphenol S is one example. Among other things, this means that conventional thermal paper cannot be disposed of as wastepaper.
If you want to accept responsibility and do what's right, there is simply no alternative to Blue4est®.
If you want to accept responsibility and do what's right, there is simply no alternative to Blue4est®.
Managing Director at Ökobon GmbH
Blue4est® uses an exclusively physical process to produce color. Tiny bubbles in the functional layer collapse when subjected to heat from the thermal print head, which results in the black layer underneath becoming visible. This process needs zero chemicals, meaning that receipts can be disposed of as wastepaper without any problem. “A new thermal paper alternative without chemical developers that could be used on existing printers – it was just genius,” Unseld recalls. “And we were still on the way back from Koehler when it hit us – the perfect name for the new thermal paper: Ökobon. It’s similar to the term ‘eco-receipt’ in English, but it really rolls off the tongue in German”
Raising awareness
A short time later, he would get started with Ökobon GmbH and run some initial market tests in the organic food sector. “We went to trade shows, sent thousands of sample packages, and had tons of conversations with retailers everywhere,” he recalls. “Almost nobody was aware that thermal paper contained substances that didn’t belong in our environment.” “To tell you the truth, things were pretty rocky at the beginning,” Christian Huber, the Head of Technical Customer Service for New Developments at Koehler Paper, says. He and his team had also provided support with the development and market launch of Blue4est®, and when things were just getting started, he and Unseld were constantly in touch. “I was the interface to printer manufacturers,” Huber says. Accordingly, he would send them the paper in order to get it certified for their cash register systems – an important step, since retail businesses need this certificate in order to be allowed to use the paper.
Close teamwork
As previously mentioned, Unseld was constantly in touch with Huber to find out whether the paper product had been approved for one printer or the other. And the printed result was often not quite right on the blue paper, meaning that Koehler had to make some adjustments to the next batch in production. “But all these organic food retailers decided that it was in our collective best interest to help get things right,” Unseld recalls. “Around 2018, things finally clicked and the paper became increasingly accepted, and larger orders started coming in even outside of the organic food sector.” Today, thousands of retailers form part of Ökobon GmbH’s clientele and order Blue4est® from the company on a regular basis. In the meantime, the blue thermal paper has become firmly established on the market and can also be ordered from resellers.
We wanted to test other areas where Blue4est® could be used.
We wanted to test other areas where Blue4est® could be used.
Head of Technical Customer Service for New Developments at Koehler Paper
Chemical-free shipping labels
“We continue to be absolutely thrilled with Blue4est® and are extremely passionate about Ökobon,” Unseld says. So it only made sense for Koehler Paper to approach him with a new proposition. “We wanted to test other areas where Blue4est® could be used,” Huber explains. As the paper is approved for direct contact with food, using it for produce labels was a logical next step. The result? BLUE4EST® PRO.
“We then thought about using the product for shipping labels.” And Unseld was on everybody’s mind right away when trying to think of a partner for testing the labels for shipping purposes. “Koehler asked us if we wanted to try out the labels,” he explains. “And of course we did!” The Ökobon team started off by testing the new labels on a small portion of their packages – and today all outbound Ökobon shipments use Blue4est® PRO labels. The technical challenges involved in shipping labels were different from those posed by checkout receipts, but teamwork between Koehler and Ökobon once again won the day. Unseld is convinced: “If you are willing to act responsibly, there simply is no alternative to Blue4est®. The standard should be blue thermal paper instead of white.”
Thermal paper with zero chemicals
This is how Blue4est® works
Blue4est® is the innovative thermal paper developed by Koehler Paper. It uses an exclusively physical process, is guaranteed to be free of chemical developers, and can be used with common thermal printers without any problem. It has received multiple environmental awards, and is the first thermal paper to be approved for direct contact with food. In addition, Blue4est® is resistant to environmental influences and will not fade for a long time – printed information should continue to be legible for at least 35 years.
