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Food mag awards in focus: Packaging Design

The Food Magazine awards will return in 2013 and with entries closing on 24 April, now's your chance to have your product recognised by industry peers!

In this preview of the annual awards, we're looking at the Packaging Design category, sponsored by APPMA.

This category is to recognise and reward creativity and innovation in food and beverage packaging.

For this award, your company, if it is not already part of a broader food processing group, will need to be producing packaging for the food or beverages industry.

The packaging product will also need to have been launched/ developed in Australia or New Zealand during 2012 or 2013.

Products that can be entered include bottle designs, packaging artwork and portion control solutions.

In order to nominate your product, you simply need to fill out the Food magazine awards nomination kit, providing simple details of your company (website, contact details, its core product offering and markets etc), as well as an overview of the design, detailing its best features. This will need to include details on the packaging design's need, implementation, effectiveness and how it's different from other designs on the market.

The design's materials, processing, sustainability and marketing will also need to be considered in your nomination.

In last year's Food magazine awards, the Packaging Design award went to O-I for its O-I Vortex Bottle.

About the winner
O-I took out the Packaging Award in 2012 for its unique internal embossing on the new Wahoo Premium Ale beer bottle.

Peter Sexton Bruce from O-I Australia said that it is the innovative design of the bottle that sets it apart from other makes.

 "It's an innovative design whereby you have the embossing on the inside of the bottle so it provides a unique positioning in the market for the customers in terms of packaging and glass solutions packaging," he said.

O-I partnered with Western Australia's Gage Roads Brewing Co. to launch the Australian- first application of internal embossing in May 2011. 

The impact of the new bottle design as well as secondary labelling changes coincides with the recent announcement that Gage had experienced a 25 percent year-on-year increase in Wahoo Premium Ale sales since the introduction of the Vortex bottle.

It also allows the use of the full label surface and is 100 percent infinitely recyclable. 

Gage Roads Brewing Co.'s former CEO, Nick Hayler, said internal embossing provided a distinct point-of-difference that was difficult to replicate by Wahoo's competitors. 

"When you consider consumer purchasing behaviours, it's easy to appreciate the importance of capturing their attention and standing out from the retail noise," he said. 

"Our experience in recent years has taught us that packaging which appeals to the consumer and grabs both their attention and imagination is vital," said Hayler.

It is not just within Australia that O-I has had success, the bottle has been adopted by Miller Lite beer in the United States where it was credited with improving Miller Lite's sales by 6 percent, a significant margin in the highly competitive beer industry. In addition, DB Breweries was the first company to launch internal embossing technology in New Zealand, after applying the Vortex bottle design to its Tui Blond Lager in 2011. When asked what the benefit of the internal embossing is, Sexton Bruce said, "Uniqueness is probably the main thing and also that they can identify with the actual brand and therefore differentiate in the market and have shelf presence."

O-I is also proactive in managing its carbon footprint and has launched a list of sustainability goals to be met by 2017. 

These include aims to reduce global energy consumption by 50 percent, reduce carbon dioxide-equivalent emissions by 65 percent and nearly double its use of recycled glass so that a global average of 60 percent of each as well as eliminating workplace incidents.

For information and entry details, click here.

The 2013 Food Magazine Awards are proudly brought to you by Platinum sponsor Heat and Control. Other sponsors include Flavour Makers, Janbak, HACCP Australia, Kerry Ingredients, Newly Weds Foods, Tronics, APPMA, Earlee Products and Kurz.

 

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