Lantmännen Unibake improves fill rate in cardboard boxes to optimize packaging and road transportation

Air is a costly commodity 
In 2018 a project in Lantmännen Unibake Sweden’s bakery in Huddinge just south of Stockholm was conducted. By analysing how each product was stacked in the cardboard boxes the bakery was able to improve the fill rate for a number of boxes resulting in less air being packed and distributed.  

The less air you load onto trucks, the less transport is needed, and the better it is for the environment.

“By packing more products into the cardboard boxes, we managed to cut the total number of pallets loaded from the Huddinge bakery onto trucks

by 6,500. That translated into more effective routing, fewer kilometres inbound and outbound and reduced material consumption, all good for the environment,” says Frank L. Breitenstein, Group Supply Chain Director in Lantmännen Unibake.

Optimization across the full value chain

Lantmännen Unibake is running a logistics programme – LogEx – to optimize, among other, packaging, road transportation, warehousing and routing.  

The packaging optimization project from Huddinge is a good example on how initiatives can emerge from local parts of the global business and serve as inspiration for others.  

“Our journey with packing more pieces in each cardboard box has just begun and it will definitely continue."

ue in other countries. When we include more of our customers in the process the potential becomes even higher,” says Frank L. Breitenstein.

What’s good for the environment is also good for business. That’s the nature of sustainability projects in logistics.

To load even more products onto every truckload Lantmännen Unibake is increasing the height of a pallet with packaged products together with a selection of partners. This is one of the initiatives from the LogEx programme running in Denmark and Norway now.  

Read more about our environmental actions related to logistics on our sustainability website.