Smurfit Westrock honoured with German Packaging Award in three categories
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As one of the world's largest manufacturers of paper-based packaging solutions, Smurfit Westrock focuses on sustainable innovations and was honoured with the German Packaging Award in three categories this year: for the Pedigree CanHolder in the category "Functionality & Convenience", for the Quick & Save Panel in the category "Economy" and the SoftCorner in the category "Logistics & Material Flow".
The German Packaging Award is a Europe-wide recognised award for innovative and sustainable packaging solutions. An independent jury honours the best packaging solutions in ten different categories.
The three award winners at a glance
CanHolder: Until now, film has often been used to group cans. However, this makes it more difficult to remove the cans, is less environmentally friendly and limits the visibility of the product. The CanHolder is an environmentally friendly and practical alternative to conventional film packaging. It eliminates the need for adhesive and makes it easier to remove the cans. Its innovative design helps to reduce plastic consumption and offers an improved user experience for end customers and manufacturers.
Panel Quick & Save: The previous one-piece packaging had several disadvantages: Handling was time-consuming and cumbersome, especially due to the use of a lot of adhesive tape, and often led to damage in logistics. The new packaging consisting of base and lid parts solves these problems. The individual packaging elements consist of different types of corrugated cardboard, which better fulfils the respective requirements. The complaint rate has been reduced from 10 to less than 1 per cent. The end customer also benefits from the simple, tool-free opening of the packaging.
SoftCorner: By switching from the standard corner to a controlled yielding corner under pressure, Smurfit Westrock has created a cost-efficient solution, especially for packaging that is additionally protected with stretch film. The innovation improves transport logistics by preventing the film of the pallet packaging from tearing through the sharp edges of the transport cartons and causing moisture damage. The "soft corner" effectively protects the contents from external influences and prevents the use of thicker films. Softcorner thus offers a sustainable and cost-efficient solution.
Oliver Thieme, Experience Centre Manager DACH: "We are proud of these three awards because they show once again that we can develop exceptional solutions for our customers with our innovative strength. We are also setting standards with our various tools for packaging optimisation, demonstrably ensuring more sustainable packaging and more (cost-)efficient processes in the packaging sector."
