The second round of winners for the Australasian Packaging Innovation & Design (PIDA) Awards was announced via a virtual ceremony on Thursday, including the Beverage and Sustainability categories.
The feeder programme for Australia and New Zealand to the World Packaging Organisation's prestigious WorldStar awards, the PIDAs are organised by the Australian Institute of Packaging, in conjunction with Packaging New Zealand.
The first round of the PIDA awards were announced Wednesday, and the results can be viewed here.
The Day Two ceremony kicked off with the Beverage category, which recognises organisations that have designed innovative packaging and/or materials within packaging and processing for liquid or dry tea, coffee, water, soft drinks and including wine, beer and spirits. All entries are also judged on sustainable packaging design considerations and what packaging changes they are undertaking to meet the 2025 National Packaging Targets.
This year’s Gold award was tied between Coca-Cola Amatil and Ecolean.
Coca-Cola Amatil (CCA) delivered a world-first by converting all of its single serve PET bottles from largely petroleum-based PET resin to 100 per cent post-consumer recycled PET resin (rPET).
Many other bottlers both in Australia and around the world have converted their water bottles to 100 per cent rPET, however, CCA is the first to achieve this on carbonated soft drink (CSD) bottles, sensitive warm-filled bottles and aseptic dairy bottles.
By converting all of these SKUs to 100% rPET, seven out of every 10 bottles CCA sells in Australia are made from recycled post-consumer resin. This equates to over 55% of CCA's total PET tonnages.
Meanwhile Ecolean received its second award for its Bannister Downs Dairy WA chilled pasteurised range, which also received the 2020 PIDA for Accessible Packaging announced on Day One of the awards.
This lightweight flexible packaging designed for liquid food products is designed to reduce its impact on the environment with convenience, innovative and eye-catching packaging. The unique designs and shapes of the packaging makes it stand out on shelf and present a quality product to consumer. Designed for chilled pasteurised beverages the packaging performs well in refrigerated and frozen requirements. The material is non-penetrable by UV light and maintains the products ‘coolness’ due to the pouch’s natural composition. When kept at or below 4 degrees, milk will stay fresh longer. It will also not leak when laid down on a fridge shelf, can be frozen when sealed and microwaved safely once the seal is broken.
Packaging can also be microwaved for a short warm up period depending on the range. Every surface of the packaging has printed artwork to communicate to consumers and stand out on the shelf. Features of the pack area self-standing and self-supporting pouch once filled; inflated air handle completed by filling machine after the pack is filled. This has been designed to enable the customer to handle, hold and carry the package easily. There is a perforated easy-to-open tear-off area at the spout of the pouch. The packaging can also be easily and fully emptied with no residue or liquid waste in the pack.
The lightweight nature of the packaging and its durability allows the packs to be interlocked and laid down flat inter outer carton shippers, reducing weight and space in freight. The lightweight nature of the packaging means less weight, less material and less logistics costs around weight and size. The Ecolean materials have been approved through REDcycle to provide the option of returning washed out pouches in-store for recycling.
Silver in the Beverage category was awarded Brownes Dairy for Australia’s first renewable gable top milk carton.
Commentator and MC for the virtual awards ceremony, Food & Drink Business and PKN publisher Lindy Hughson said: "The beverage sector is certainly one of the most dynamic sectors, not only from a product innovation point of view, but also from the level of innovation that we are seeing in packaging, especially on the accessibility and sustainability front.
"Consumer sentiment towards plastics in particular has changed dramatically, and as the ground beneath beverage packaging producers is shifting, many are shifting along with it, making investments in recycling facilities, new material development, new closures, and innovating new ways of packaging drinks that not only meets sustainability goals but continues to engage and excite the consumer.
"Both winners of this catgeory are forward-thinking players whose entries move beyond delivering packaging with sustainability as a selling point to providing a solution that moves the whole industry forward towards a circular economy," she said.
SUSTAINABLE PACKAGING DESIGN OF THE YEAR
The Sustainable Packaging Design of the Year Special Award is designed to recognise companies that have developed innovative packaging or processing solutions with sustainability considerations. Elements include Social, Material, Source Reduction, Energy and Recovery. One of the winners will be awarded the custom EcodEX packaging environmental assessment valued at $10,000. Selerant will implement its acclaimed EcodEX assessment and provide the winner a reputable third-party environmental evaluation of the product package or formulation
This year, two sub-categories were created within the award, the Sustainable Packaging Design of the Year – Retail Pack, and Sustainable Packaging Design of the Year – Product Protection.
In the Retail Pack sub-category, Coca-Cola Amatil took out the Gold award for its 100% recyclable post-consumer recycled rPET bottles, while Silver was awarded to Pact Group’s work for New Zealand's Earthwise brand of PCR 75% rHDPE household cleaning range.
The Bronze award in the Retail Pack category was tied between Brownes Dairy for Australia’s first renewable gable top milk carton and UPM Raflatac & Kiwi Labels for the CUSTOM-PAK rPET Cherry Punnet with self-adhesive label, permanent adhesive that is also washable at the PET recycling plant.
"The Retail Pack sub-category win by Coca-Cola Amatil really comes as no surprise," Hughson said. "Its recycled PET bottle development that covers not just carbonated soft drinks, itself a huge retail category, but also the big retail movers of sensitive warm-filled energy drinks and aseptic dairy drinks -- is a huge step forward for beverage packaging, and for our 2025 targets."
In the Product Protection sub-category, the Gold award was tied between Orora Fibre Packaging (now named Opal Packaging) for the recyclable moulded paper inserts, and Sealed Air Brand Protective Packaging for the TempGuard kerbside recyclable packaging for pre-packaged, temperature sensitive goods.
The Orora Fibre Packaging inserts provide superior protection and presentation for fresh produce inside the carton and offer a recyclable alternative to standard, non-recyclable PVC plastic inserts.
The recyclable moulded paper inserts are made from responsibly sourced fibre and can be customised with specific colours and branding for a range of products. The inserts are currently available for avocado and mango segments in multiple count sizes.
The individually moulded trays provide shock and vibration protection (no ringing on fruit) and offers ventilation and moisture control characteristics to ensure fresh produce integrity.
Meanwhile, Sealed Air's TempGuard is a fully Kerbside recyclable and ARL compliant paper pouch liner made from virgin kraft paper and is filled with 100% recycled paper. It is used to line cartons that are used for distribution to deliver exceptional thermal insulation for chilled items including chilled meals, pharmaceuticals and chocolate.
TempGuard flexible liner pads are only 14mm thick yet provides cushioning and protection with greater space efficiency compared to EPS (wall thickness of 30mm) and allowing the opportunity for customers to decrease the size of the outer carton. TempGuard’s flatpack format enables reduced warehousing costs (space and utilities) and efficiency improvements compared with EPS.
Hughson noted that the Product Protection sub-category underscores the importance of packaging’s main role: to get the product from factory to shelf and into the hands of the consumer while fully maintaining its integrity.
"This is to some extent the less glamorous side of packaging, if we’re comparing it to the branded pack on shelf, but it’s no less important, and some would argue more so," she said.
The Young Packaging Professional of the Year and AIP Special Awards were also presented during the ceremnony. For the full list of Day Two winners, click here.
