World Star Packaging 2015 highlights smart, eco-friendly solutions

INNOVATIVE, smart, useful, and elegant are just some of the buzzwords at this year’s World Star Packaging 2015 award. 

 

Nearly 150 products out of 265 candidates, already winners of local prizes in their respective countries, will compete for the prestigious award, which will culminate at Ipack-Ima 2015 (May 19 to 23) in Milan, where the ceremony for the 2015 WorldStar Awards will take place on May 19. 

 

According to Guido Corbella, Ipack-Ima spa CEO, “We strongly wished for the World Packaging Organization, the global association of the packaging industry, to hold the award giving ceremony for its international prize in Milan. This is an industry where Italy plays a leading technological and economic role and which could supply the answers to upcoming challenges over the next few years, from renewable resources to efficiency, from the rights of the underprivileged to the needs of SMEs.” 

 

The breakthrough packaging products and solutions included in the 148 nominees mark the state-of-the-art evolution, performance, and technology of the near future. These include smart food and wine packaging solutions, and packaging options that highlight safety and eco-friendliness. 

 

Reflecting market trends, the 148 winners included a number of Asian packages. Asia currently accounts for 34.81% of the €800 billion market, followed by North America (22.16%) and Europe (19.84%). Industry experts predict the market will reach the 1,000 billion mark by 2020.

 

The Turkish honey Balparmak Snap & Squeeze, which leverages an all-Italian technology and is produced by a Bologna-based company specializing in automated packaging machinery, is a small, business-card-sized flexible sachet. Suitable for tea, coffee, herb tea, and any other beverage requiring sweetening, the sachet can be opened with just one hand by simply folding the two short sides between the thumb and index. A small hole in the middle releases a monodose of honey.

 

Norway-based Grilstad’s plastic cup with a screw-on cap offers a convenient, compact packaging option for salami slices. The space-saving design from Superfos is an ideal alternative to the traditional plastic tray, which besides being bulky and rarely resealable takes up a lot of horizontal space both in the refrigerator and on the table. 

 

Schwan’s Soft Serve ice cream is a cup-shaped sachet that can be stored in the refrigerator. It features a specially designed dispenser that will pour a creamy dose of soft serve upon squeezing, complete with the typical swirl. The elegant packaging, developed by Ampac doubles as a fun-to-use disposable pastry bag for serving ice cream.

 

German company Klingele Papierwerke has developed a smart anti-shock box for shipping fragile products. The single packaging developed for valuable bottles marks a significant contribution to the increasingly export-heavy wine industry and is ideal for winemakers’ e-commerce business. The product is a long, narrow one-bottle box with an identical box placed inside it that is rotated 45 degrees along the same axis. The second box, which is for holding the bottle, can take any shock on any of the four sides. It will bump only against soft corrugated cardboard walls surrounded by the empty space of the first box.

 

The Tetra Top Separable milk and beverage carton, which has been recognized by the Italian Packaging Institute and the WPO, offers a smart environment-friendly solution for waste collection. The carton’s plastic top with a screw-on cap can be removed for separate recycling of plastic and cardboard. It is designed such that even children can remove the top. The product provides an easy solution for salvaging and recycling cardboard packages, which in Italy has reached 50% of the total amount marketed.

 

The World Star Packaging 2015 award will include the President’s prize, Sustainability prize, and Marketing Prize. The award ceremony will also include three prototypes and projects by young inventors. The World Star Student Award will go to a Turkish, a Chinese, and a South African participant selected from dozens of young inventors and creative students from schools around the world. 

 

Special mentions will also be announced for dozens of students mainly from emerging countries, especially China followed by Turkey, the Middle East, India and Brazil.

 

Ipack-Ima 2015 will take place three weeks after the inauguration of the EXPO 2015, just a few steps away and with a direct connection between the fairgrounds and the village of the great Universal Exposition.