16 winners chosen in record DuPont Awards for Packaging Innovation

This year, Unilever in the UK took the diamond award for its line of compressed deodorants. The international panel of judges recognized Unilever for excellence in all three award criteria – technological advancement, responsible packaging and enhanced user experience. 

In addition to the diamond award, the panel of independent judges selected five gold winners and 10 silver winners representing 11 countries. 

Gold award recipients demonstrate excellence in any two of the criteria, while silver award recipients show excellence in any one of the criteria.

Consumer convenience earned high marks in this year’s competition, with 75 percent of the winning packaging designed to bring a higher degree of convenience to consumers.

Entries winning a gold award included cardboard packaging from VerDeSoft, Germany that allows home cooks to prepare fresh pasta in three minutes by squeezing dough straight out of the package into a boiling pot.

P&G in Belgium, Brussels, Singapore and Switzerland won an award for liquid cleaner bottles with smart dosing caps that automatically stop the product flow after dispensing a pre-measured dose, while ultra-high-temperature milk pouches from Parakh Agro Industries India, are designed to keep milk fresh without refrigeration for up to 90 days and enable it to be consumed without first being boiled.

Yasmin Siddiqi, DuPont Packaging Awards program leader, said: ‘DuPont Packaging Awards winners demonstrate the best of today’s innovative packaging solutions.

‘Unique designs and advanced technology are used more and more creatively today to package products to enhance user experience and convenience.’  

Both the P&G and VerDeSoft entries won for technological advancement and enhanced user experience. Plastipak’s Direct Object Printing entry also won gold, ticking the boxes of the technological advancement and responsible packaging criteria.

Amcor Flexibles’ Separable Pouch entry won for technological advancement and enhanced user experience by consumers to prepare meals at home using two separate paste mixes at different points in preparation. The package contains two separate pouches that are co-joined by an easy-tear dotted line. Made by a smart mold in the bag-making machine, the technology advancement is the clean, simple separation of the two pouches.

The ultra-high-temperature milk pouches from Parakh Agro Industries allow milk to be packed in a flexible pouch that has a shelf life of 90 days. Parakh Agro Industries’ UHT milk pouch uses a five-layer EVOH-based film made with DuPont Bynel 4109 tie layer resin.  No refrigeration is required until it is opened, and there is no need to boil the milk before it is consumed. The milk is sterilized at a high temperature and packed in aseptic conditions.

Silver winners include: the Green Water Cooler Bottle from Ice River Springs Water Company, which is made from 100 percent recycled material; Betamiel’s Honey Pot, made of beeswax leftover from honey harvesting; a stand-up retort pouch from Bemis for Fugini, which is the first commercial retort flexible packaging product in the food service industry in Brazil; the Nampak Plastics Infini Bottle entry, HDPE milk bottles that contain up to 20 percent less material and up to 30 percent recycled HDPE; a microwaveable sandwich pouch from Curwood for Hillshire Brands Heat Fresh, with the horizontal form-fill-seal package keeping bread soft and moist while heating the rest of the sandwich evenly and thoroughly in the original package; the Peanut Package entry from Clear Lam Packaging, which that features it PrimaPak and takes the form of a flexible, recloseable “pop-up box” made from a single roll of flexible film and enhanced with an outer label that adds vertical strength and rigidity; FFP Packaging Solutions’ Roast-In-The-Bag Chicken Package, a large polyester flow wrap sealed with heat-seal polyester, which allows a whole chicken to be roasted in its retail package so consumers can place it straight in the oven without having to touch the raw meat; the San Rafael ham package through Sigma Alimentos that features a snap-top to give an audible click when the top is secure and is described as easy-to-open so making the product more accessible to consumers; a soup packet for the African market from Mondi optimized for extended shelf life and environmental savings; and a new Gatorade bottle designed to be light and strong.