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Gold Awards presented for the year’s best innovations.

Good? Better? Best! On the first day of the FachPack trade fair in Nuremberg, 15 top packaging solutions that stand out from among the German Packaging Award 2021 winners were honoured by the German Packaging Institute (dvi) with the exclusive Gold Award for particularly ground-breaking innovations. All 52 of this year’s Packaging Award winners were additionally introduced and honoured as part of this special industry event. The Gold Award winners at Europe’s biggest showcase for packaging achievements represent the very best solutions in nine different categories: Digitalization, Functionality & Convenience, Design & Processing, Logistics & Material Flow, Sustainability, New Material, Packaging Machinery, Presentation of Goods and Economic Efficiency. The jury also decided to make a special Gold Award in the Young Talents category.

The winners of this year’s German Packaging Award were originally announced by the German Packaging Institute (dvi) in August. Europe’s biggest showcase for packaging achievements is advertised internationally. It is organized under the patronage of the Federal Ministry of Economic Affairs and Energy and has been promoting innovative activities in the industry for more than 50 years now.

On the first day of the FachPack trade fair in Nuremberg, the proud winners were presented with a certificate and seal for their excellent innovative work. Fifteen particularly ground-breaking innovations were chosen by the German Packaging Award jury from among the 52 German Packaging Award winners and additionally honoured with the exclusive Gold Award. This special industry event attracted a substantial number of visitors, both in person and online. Packaging industry and media representatives got together to celebrate the year’s top innovations.

The packaging industry – riding high
“If the future fails, it won’t be the fault of packaging – on the contrary.” Kim Cheng, the dvi’s Managing Director, is confident: “Packaging will continue to play a key role in helping us overcome today’s challenges, both big and small. Our highly innovative industry is in demand – and it’s delivering. The 15 winners of the Gold Awards and the 52 German Packaging Award winners are outstanding testimony to that. Their new solutions have benefits for people, the environment and businesses. They make a difference by ensuring health and hygiene, sustainability and environmental protection, productivity and prosperity.”

Winfried Batzke, co-Managing Director together with Cheng, praised the diversity of the innovations submitted as well as the generally high standard of the participants. “Our jury did a truly fantastic and highly professional job here. During the two-day, non-virtual deliberations, they took a detailed look at every single solution before finally arriving at their verdict. The Gold Awards are the gold crest of a massive wave of innovations that is currently sweeping over the packaging business. Our industry really is riding high!”

The 15 Gold Award winners
This year’s Gold Awards went to 13 companies at home in Germany as well as one from Latvia and one from Switzerland. The winners are as follows:

In the Digitalization category

  • A data management system that automates the relevant data for putting together transport boxes delivered to customers and makes it available for the packing process. Winner: HelloFresh SE.

In the Sustainability category

  • A process for converting CO2 into ethanol, which in turn forms the basis for many sustainable, recyclable plastics and has already been used to produce the first bottles for the consumer goods market. Winner from Switzerland: Mirabelle Group in partnership with LanzaTech and Migros in the Sustainability category.

  • Resource-saving hybrid packaging. The container consists of a stable, rigid outer layer made of PCR material (PE) and a flexible, contracting, integrated, extremely thin inner bag (bag-in-bottle) made of virgin material (PE). Winner: Gaplast GmbH in the Sustainability category.

  • NIR marker for plastic cartridges, which solves the problem of cartridges that are not completely empty in the recycling stream and separates them with low integration effort. Winners: Tailorlux GmbH and Fischbach KG Engelskirchen in the Sustainability category.

  • A packaging solution with a damping effect for contents like pumps and filter cartridges, where a smart corrugated blank works like a shock absorber and can be reversed again and again. Winner: Smurfit Kappa.

In the Economic Efficiency category

  • An innovative solution that brings the advantages of digital technology to the flexographic printing process that is still predominant in film packaging printing, avoids the production waste typical of the process and significantly reduces the carbon footprint. Winner: SÜDPACK Verpackungen GmbH & Co. KG with Goldsteig as project partner.

In the Design & Processing category

  • A packaging relaunch which impresses with its perfect interplay of design and packaging development and creates a medically emotive design language. Winner: design for human nature GmbH.

In the New Material category

  • Paddle packaging made of cardboard / corrugated board, which uses a new material based on foamed cellulose fibre instead of plastic or cardboard padding materials to fix the paddles. Winner from Latvia: Stora Enso Latvia.

  • User-friendly, intelligent corrosion protection using innovative components that care for parts, employees and resources. Submitted by EXCOR Korrosionsschutz-Technologien und -Produkte GmbH.

In the Functionality & Convenience category

  • A new packaging system for oxidative hair colours for professional salons, offering the ability to mix hair dyes with a developer lotion in a closed system. Submitted by Kao Germany GmbH.

  • Take-away kebab packaging which innovatively streamlines the process and simplifies handling for kebab sellers and consumers alike. Winner: Haepsi GmbH.

In the Presentation of Goods category

  • A display that impresses with its size and walk-in feature, drawing the attention of shoppers or gamers at the POS. Submitted by Schoepe Display GmbH.

In the Logistics & Material Flow category

  • A reusable, recycled plastic roll container with impressive stability, triple fixing of the side rails as well as ergonomic benefits, flexibility and volume reducibility. Submitted by WALTHER Faltsysteme GmbH.

In the Packaging Machinery category

  • A highly flexible packaging system for shipping boxes which determines the packaging volume based on the geometry of the packaged goods, selects the most suitable corrugated board blank from a stock of different sizes, cuts, perforates and creases the blank individually, sets it up and then fills and seals it. Submitted by Kern AG.

In the Young Talents category:

  • A reusable, resource-saving parcel system made from durable material for the online retail sector that can be returned through the letterbox. Submitted by Rebekka Jochem and Jacobo Cuesta Wolf of the Faculty of Design at Wismar University of Applied Sciences.

The German Packaging Award proudly presents
A brief introduction to all Gold and Packaging Award winners has been published jointly by the dvi, its premium partners FachPack, the IGEPA Group and Coca-Cola and its partner PEFC on the institute website at verpackung.org. The full text of the jury’s assessments is likewise reproduced there.

The dvi will present the innovations submitted for the German Packaging Award during FachPack at the PackBox forum (11 a.m. to 12 noon on 29 September 2021 in Hall 4, Booth 265). The network is additionally showcased in Hall 6, Booth 327, within the Pavilion of Associations.

The submission period for the next German Packaging Award begins on 1 February 2022.

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