(BRATTLEBORO, VT) – July 23, 2004 – FiberMark announces Alloy™, a new line of packaging materials that combine performance, versatility, and the unique looks that elevate brands. Alloy combines an uncoated paperboard base with a decorative covering material, creating a customizable new material option for high-impact packaging.

Alloy’s decorative exterior can be matched to virtually any hue imaginable. Alloy’s coating, texture, and finish can incorporate an array of desired patterns including animal skins, wood finishes, metallic looks, fabrics, and a broad range of FiberMark visuals. Alloy marries FiberMark’s decorative flexible materials, including Pellaq®, Skivertex®, Kivar® 7 and Balmoral® with the stiffness of the base material.  As a result, Alloy™ is a self-supporting material that can be used to create an array of package designs, as well as coordinating collateral items. Sales kits, point of purchase displays, posters, tags, brochures, shopping bags and other marketing vehicles all represent opportunities to reinforce a brand image, and FiberMark materials can contribute to creating one unique, unified look across many media.

A major creative advantage that Alloy delivers is that the paperboard base is available in black, white, gray, blue and red. In the past, box manufacturers would have been unable to accommodate this design feature without placing a special order for colored board, requiring added time and expense. Now, creative professionals can easily move beyond “just white” for the base.

Alloy’s duplex construction provides additional benefits for box converters. Using Alloy reduces the production steps and material waste that results from laminating to board in-house before creating the packaging. This eliminates common manufacturing issues, such as minimum order quantities, material compatibility, multiple sources and complex delivery schedules. Using Alloy also eliminates the expense and challenges associated with laminating specialty materials.

Like all FiberMark products, Alloy is compatible with a wide variety of manufacturing and secondary decorating processes, including die-cutting, post-embossing, silk screening and foil stamping with superior results.  Additionally, FiberMark can accommodate short runs, allowing converters to create realistic prototypes for test marketing or approvals.

FiberMark materials are durable, strong, scuff and stain resistant, and are available in various weights. These performance traits, along with the infinite design capabilities, make Alloy an excellent option for CD and DVD packaging, cosmetics, cookies or candy gift boxes, collector’s editions, and packaging designed for long-term reuse.

FiberMark (www.FiberMark.com) offers inventive packaging materials that express brands, inspire designs and elevate products in the retail environment. With over twenty product lines incorporating a wide range of visual and tactile elements, FiberMark materials provide a limitless array of package design possibilities. These specialty fiber-based materials are enhanced with an extensive palette of colors, finishes, and embossing techniques that create visual depth and invite touch. FiberMark’s design specialists work with creative teams to develop packaging that captures a brand’s unique personality to differentiate it from competitors, attract attention, and significantly drive sales. FiberMark crafts its materials in the U.S. and Europe, creating innovative solutions for world-leading brands.

For further information on Alloy and other brand-enhancing packaging materials from FiberMark, please contact Stella Alstede at FiberMark, Tel: 413 539 5273 or E-mail:  packaging@fibermark.com.