The World Packaging Organisation (WPO) has announced the winners of its WorldStar 2024 competition, spotlighting packaging with recycled content, efficient designs, interactive experiences, and more.
The award ceremony will take place on 15th June during ProPak Asia in Thailand. Of the 435 entries from 41 countries, the top five most awarded nations are Japan (28), Germany (21), Australia and New Zealand (16), USA (12), and in joint fifth place are Brazil and Austria (11).
During the event, WPO will announce the winners of its special President’s Award, Sustainability Award, Marketing Award, and Packaging that Saves Food Award categories.
Packages qualify for a WorldStar Award when they have already received a national or regional packaging award from a WPO-recognized packaging competition within the last two years.
This year’s winning entries include Rengo’s pizza set box distributed during the 2022 FIFA World Cup and the 2023 World Baseball Classic periods. It sought to facilitate a communal experience of watching sports post-pandemic, with the box able to be transformed into a miniature stadium after use.
Starpack’s pyramid sweet box is a lightweight, compact pack made of moisture-resistant, recyclable cardboard, with its pyramid shape aiming to cut down on material use. It is designed for reuse and on-shelf visual appeal, and features a snug-fitting lid to prevent spillages.
Pact Group’s 50% recycled polypropylene 15L paint pail, applied to Dulux’s EnviroO2 range, has also been recognized. Its rPP is apparently a blend of locally sourced post-industrial and post-consumer resin sourced from an MRF, recycling containers for ice cream, yoghurt, margarine, and takeaway products, amongst others.
A simplified Life Cycle Assessment has determined that the 50% rPP will eliminate 71 tonnes of CO2 every year, save 2.16 million litres of water, and eliminate 5.2T of solid waste every year. The companies are collectively working towards the incorporation of 70% rPP.
Mondi is taking home prizes for both its Hug&Hold shrink wrap alternative made of paper and ProtectorBag ExpandForm, an expandable paper bag for rollpacked mattresses.
Its FunctionalBarrier paper has also been used to manufacture easy2cool’s winning entry, its paperfloc Eco-Liner e-commerce bag for fresh and frozen food.
The complete list of winners is available to view via the WorldStar or WPO webpages.
“It is always with pride and excitement that WPO announces the best of the best packaging innovation around the globe,” says WPO’s president, Luciana Pellegrino. “The WorldStar Awards showcases how dynamic and technological the packaging is on a global level.
“The increasing number of entries every year and the global reach of WorldStar prove that our industry keeps investing in efficiency and new solutions to better serve the society. This global award raises the voice for packaging and brings light to innovation, aligned to the main supply and consumption chains trends and modern life needs and challenges: save food, sustainability, branding and UX (user experience), food safety, smart packaging, among other aspects.
“The WorldStar brings with it the effort of WPO´s members in 63 different countries on promoting local and regional awards to foster innovation on a local level and to recognize professionals, packaging converters and brands that make it happen.”
Soha Atallah, vice president Events and WorldStar coordinator, adds: “WorldStar echoes the importance of packaging innovation on a global level, fostering science, technology and innovation, recognizing and encouraging packaging professionals to go beyond.
“As always, our aim is to promote packaging innovation in various sectors, proving that a good package can be an essential solution to many of the modern problems, especially sustainability, food waste and extending shelf life of food and agricultural products. That´s why we encourage all the companies from around the world to benefit from this global opportunity to promote their packaging by competing with the best of the best packaging innovation on a global scale.”
Last year’s awards featured the newly-introduced Gift Packaging, Digital Packaging, and Accessible Packaging categories. Japan was the most awarded country with 26 awards, followed by Australia and New Zealand with 19 awards, India and Germany with 18, Turkey with 14, and Austria with 13.
The winners of the Sustainability Awards 2023 were also announced at the Sustainable Packaging Summit in Amsterdam last November. Our overall winner, AMP Robotics, was also the successful nominee in the Machinery category.
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