A 20 strong delegation of PIDA winners for Australia and New Zealand recently flew to Bangkok, Thailand to attend the 2024 WorldStar Packaging Awards ceremony which was held at ProPak Asia.
A comment from Nerida Kelton FAIP, Executive Director – AIP, Vice President – Sustainability & Save Food – WPO
A delegation of Australian and New Zealand PIDA winners were able to celebrate the fact that the ANZ region took out third in the world for the highest amount of general awards but were also able to cheer on two very special award recognitions for the region that were announced on the night.
KOi refillable foaming handwash starter kit and 4 pk refillable handwash tablets from Coles Group were recognised with a silver president award and JBS Swift Lamb Cutlets CRYOVAC Darfesh Mono-PET rollstock (SEE) took out the coveted Gold for the Sustainability special award category.
John Bigley, AIP president, accepted the Silver President award for Coles and Nerida Kelton, wearing her vice president Sustainability and Save Food hat for the WPO, was extremely proud to have been able to personally present Alan Adams with the Gold Sustainability award.
As the silver winner for the President Award, Natalie Shaw, sustainable packaging lead at Coles Group said that ‘Winning a Silver President Award, on top of winning a WorldStar general award, is a significant achievement for the Coles Own Brand Team and we are proud to represent Australia and New Zealand in this prestigious awards program. It reinforces that working in packaging is a dynamic space that celebrates innovation and sustainable design.”
“The Coles team are committed to improve sustainability across our product packaging that, in turn, enables customers to divert packaging waste, including plastic, from landfill. Winning two WorldStar awards is a high recognition and provides motivation to keep improving and innovating as we work towards supporting industry in delivering the 2025 national packaging targets,” she said.
According to Alan Adams, sustainability director APAC, SEE, “We were surprised to win the Gold Sustainability Award and are thrilled to receive this pinnacle of recognition for our teams at SEE and JBS teams who drive – behind the scenes – the delivery of sustainable high-performance packs to market. A big thank you to the WPO, and the AIP via the PIDA Awards, for this opportunity to celebrate and recognise our great teams.”
Brian Petroff, general manager of JBS Southern Value Add and Retail Ready added that JBS is proud of the recent Gold Sustainability special award recognition from the WorldStar Awards.
“We take great pride in the innovative solutions developed by JBS Southern – Value Add, which actively promotes sustainability. With this recent achievement, we successfully reduced a significant amount of plastic waste from landfills.
“Consumers are more than ever conscience of packaging waste and so are we, our packaging solutions aim to minimise waste while guaranteeing the visually appealing and durable retail-ready packaging JBS Southern is known for. Our team continues to find sustainable solutions right across the business, and it is fantastic to receive such high recognition with this award,”
said Petroff.
AIP executive director, Nerida Kelton also added “What an absolute honour to have been able to celebrate the ANZ PIDA award winning packs, but to also present the Gold Sustainability award to JBS and SEE. A very special moment was to also find out on the night that Coles received the silver President’s award which is a remarkable achievement.
“For me personally, it truly is a proud moment to see how well PIDA winners continue to do on the global stage, how we all come together to celebrate the companies that are recognised and how we are the loudest cheer squad in the room year-on-year. To receive a WorldStar Packaging Award is becoming more difficult each year, as there are so many entries from across the globe to choose from. The latest round of WorldStar Packaging Awards attracted 435 entries from 41 countries and 35 judges determined 214 winners for the 2024 round of the awards program. For ANZ to do so well each year is a true testament to how innovative and intuitive our packaging designs really are on a global scale. Congratulations to the 16 companies and we can’t wait for 2025.”
The AIP also had a large area in ProPak Asia that showcased 2023 PIDA winners for all of the visitors of the exhibition to see. The area had high traffic for the four days of the show with many enquiries about the packaging designs.
ANZ PIDA winners have once again been internationally recognised with 16 awards across eight categories including Packaging Materials & Components, Food, Other, Household, Health & Personal Care, E-Commerce, Labelling & Decoration and Alcoholic Beverages.
Three of our innovations were recognised across multiple categories – the DualPakECO certified compostable food trays (Confoil/BASF), Wine Protector Packaging (Planet Protector Packaging) and KOi foaming handwash starter kit and refill solution by Coles Group.
In addition, first time entrant Australian Organic Food Co was recognised for the Australasian-first Minestrone Soup mono material retort pouch (Flavour Makers & Toppan) and Future Ecology – Emguard (Oji Fibre Solutions) from New Zealand. Only winners from the Australasian Packaging Innovation & Design (PDIA) awards are eligible in the region to enter the prestigious global WorldStar Packaging awards, that are run by the World Packaging Organisation (WPO).