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Pro Carton ECMA Award: here are the winners!
11 September 2015
More than one hundred entries, including many fantastic innovations, delighted the jury of the Pro Carton ECMA Award this year. The focus was on the unique sustainability of cartonboard: numerous innovative concepts were devoted to cartonboard as a replacement for other materials in order to find more sustainable packaging solutions for the future.
The festive Award Gala on 10th September 2015 was the eagerly awaited highlight of the ECMA Congress in Bucharest. The Coronation Hall of the former Royal Palace, today's National Museum, provided an elegant backdrop. The evening was rounded off with Romanian folklore presentations.
The finalists were already announced in August. The Awards were presented in the seven categories together with the three main prizes: "Carton of the Year“, "Most Innovative“ and "Sustainability“. The certificates and trophies were presented by Roland Rex, President Pro Carton, Dr. Andreas Blaschke, President ECMA, and Satkar Gidda, Chairman of the Jury.
"Carton of the Year“ was awarded to the cosmetic packaging for "Ambuja“: few packaging solutions express the value of the contents so instantly – with exceptional elegance in terms of colour design as well as perfect choreography between opening and closing. An audible click when closing underlines the unique feeling of holding a valuable product in your hands.
The "Most Innovative“ Award went to a novel egg pack; " García Puente free-range eggs “. This demonstrated completely new thinking for a classical product. The carton is original and creative and yet combines all the advantages of classical packaging. Safety and simplicity dictated the design. For the client it was love at first sight.
This time, maximum sustainability went to "Fazer Alku new mill products“, which won the Sustainability Award. This entirely new solution in this product segment demonstrates decisive progress: goodbye to the irritating plastic bag inside the pack, which had a negative impact both on convenience and the value perception of the product. The resealability of the pack is a further wonderful solution.
As always, the jury represented all areas of the Packaging Supply Chain: Satkar Gidda (Chairman of the Jury) was responsible for design and marketing – together with Susanne Lippitsch, Stan Akkermans (Mars) and Wilfried Duivenvoorden (Unilever) representing the brands, Lotte Krekels (Carrefour) added input from a retailer’s perspective and Peter Klein Sprokkelhorst served as technical consultant to the jury, focussing on the technical refinements of the submitted packs.
Jury-Chairman Satkar Gidda: "Having two members representing the clients' point of view proved a real bonus for the discussions, which were already quite intense owing to the quality of the entries. A frequent statement by the jury members was 'never seen before'. Many of the packs provoked interaction. Some of the structural designs were really fantastic. What's more, 'Wow‘ design' need not be complicated. If an excellent concept is in harmony with the requirements of production, distribution, retail and, in particular, the customer, then this leads to something truly powerful."
