Getting a Cellera Line Up and Running: What Converters Can Expect

The question we hear most from converters, in Europe and now in the U.S., is a practical one. Not whether dry forming works. It is running on a customer's production floor today. The question is what it actually takes to get there: what happens between a first conversation and the day a line in your plant is making saleable product. This is the path as we run it. No step is skipped, and nothing here depends on a lab result that has not already been repeated at industrial scale.

THE PLATFORM YOU ARE INSTALLING

Cellera is our serial dry forming machine platform. It takes cellulose pulp from a reel, separates the fibers in air, forms them into a pad with our patented FiberIQ fiber-formation system, and presses the pad into a finished product with heat and pressure. There is no water in the forming step and no drying stage after it.

A few numbers converters ask for first. The line occupies roughly 18 by 10 meters with 5.5 meters of height. Cycle time is 4 seconds, depending on the product. The press table is 850 by 450 millimeters with 450 tons of press force. Energy use is 1.8 kWh per kilogram of product, measured in a third-party verified life cycle assessment, against a typical 4 to 7 for wet molding. The platform was industrialized with GDM, a Coesia company, and AP&T, so the press, the handling, and the controls come from companies that have built production machinery for decades. Cellera powers up in seconds and is intuitive enough that one operator can manage two machines.

You own the machine outright. There is no license on the technology, so what you develop on it is yours.

STEP 1. PORTFOLIO EXPLORATION

The first conversation is about your products, not ours. Which items in your portfolio, or your customers' portfolios, are candidates for dry-formed fiber? What volumes? What functionality do they need to have, and what performance do they need to achieve?

Two routes come out of this. Some converters start with our signature products, the quick-serve range of plates, bowls, hot- and cold-beverage lids and takeaway trays as well as our protein and ready-meal trays, because the tooling and recipes already exist and the path to production is shortest. Others bring a hero product of their own. Most do a bit of both.

We will also tell you, at this stage, if something is a poor fit. Dry forming is strongest in shallow to medium formats. Deep, multi-compartment products have historically favored wet molding. Finding that out in week one costs nothing.

STEP 2. PRODUCT DEVELOPMENT IN VARBERG

Development happens at the Yangi Technical Center in Varberg, Sweden, where our industrial designers, material scientists, and tooling engineers sit next to the equipment. Designing for dry forming is rarely a one-to-one copy of a plastic or wet-molded part. The process rewards fiber-optimized shapes, considered draft angles, controlled thickness and density, and features formed on both faces in the tool, from branding to de-nesting lugs. Our designers work through that with you rather than handing back a drawing.

Prototypes are tested against application-specific methods we developed because standard material tests did not answer the questions converters actually have: fiber formation analysis, oil hold-out and water resistance, wet strength, compression, deflection, hoop strength, and fiber release. Barrier recipes for grease and moisture are developed in the same lab, and food-contact compliance is validated with accredited third-party institutes. Tooling is fast and affordable to iterate, and commissioning a tool on the line is fast, so a design change does not cost you a month.

STEP 3. TRIALS AT INDUSTRIAL-RELEVANT VOLUME

Before anything ships to your site, the product runs on our industrial demo line in Varberg at volumes that mean something. This is where converters validate cycle time, quality consistency, and material use on their own product, and where brands can take a pilot batch into a real market test. One of our tray formats went from this line straight into a full day of festival foodservice with a catering operator in Sweden, with no performance issues reported. The point of the trial is that the line arrives at your plant with a validated product, not a promising one.

STEP 4. PLANNING YOUR SITE

Site planning for dry forming is simpler than for wet molding because so much is absent. There is no slurry preparation, no dewatering, no water treatment, and no drying oven, which means no water permits to secure and far less utility infrastructure to install. What you plan for is the footprint of the Cellera machine, and your end-of-line: cutting is integrated, and coating or other finishing steps can be added where the product requires them.

Raw material is 100 percent renewable cellulose pulp supplied on reels, with FSC-certified fiber available. Because the pulp arrives dry and stays dry, material handling looks more like a converting operation than a molding plant.

STEP 5. INSTALLATION AND COMMISSIONING

Installation is run by our team with our manufacturing partners. Commissioning follows the same sequence we used at the first serial customer site: mechanical and electrical installation, process start-up on the validated product, then ramp to continuous operation with your operators trained on the line. The customer site reported continuous operation, high uptime, fast cycles, and repeatable product quality during this phase, and that is the benchmark we hold ourselves to on every installation.

Lead time to a running line depends on tooling scope and site readiness, so we quote it as a project plan rather than a brochure number. Ask for one.

STEP 6. RUNNING AND GROWING

Day to day, the line is a converting line. Changeovers are quick, one operator can oversee two machines, and the absence of water and drying removes the two most common sources of downtime in molded fiber. Products come off the line compatible with existing paper recycling streams, PFAS-free and proven curbside recyclable, which matters for the brands you supply as much as for you.

Growth happens two ways. New products from your own portfolio go through the same development loop, faster each time because your team knows the process. And because you own the platform outright, upgrades and new capabilities developed with us are yours to adopt on your schedule.

WHY THIS MATTERS NOW IN THE U.S.

Demand for molded fiber packaging in the U.S. has outpaced domestic production capacity, and anti-dumping duties and tariffs on imported molded fiber have made the gap harder to fill from overseas. Converters who add fiber capacity now are adding it into a market that is asking for it. Dry forming is the shorter route to that capacity: fewer utilities, less floor space, a faster cycle, and a platform that is already proven in production.

WHERE TO START

We are at PACK EXPO International in Chicago, October 18 to 21, Booth S-3422 in the South Building. Bring your product, your volumes, and your floor plan, and we will walk through the steps above against your plant. If you want to make sure you talk to our team, pre-book a meeting at PACK EXPO.

If you prefer to start before the show or cannot attend, contact our team today for a first exploration call.