Crown wins packaging award for Thorntons

Crown Holdings and its affiliated companies have won nine awards for packaging from the Metal Packaging Manufacturers' Association (MPMA).

Crown won the the speciality award for the company's tin designed for Origins, a premium chocolate gift set for men. Origins is produced by UK confectioner Thorntons.

The design was the overall winner in the flour and sugar confectionery category. The book-shaped package is decorated in gold hues to present a tone of luxury and features an embossed globe to underscore the fact that the gift set contains premium chocolates from all over the world.

New food packaging indicates that innovation in the industry continues to be driven by fast changing social trends and the increasing consumer demand for convenience and safety.

Looking pretty and as luxurious as possible also helps at the marketing end of the equation. Environmental awareness, profitability, convenience and differentiation also make the big sell with food companies seeking to attract consumer attention.

A DuPont-sponsored survey on behalf of Cryovac found that 72 per cent of US consumers are willing to pay more for improved food and beverage packaging that guarantees freshness.

Teamplast​, based in the Netherlands, has come up with a spout ball design that can be used as a closure for sports drinks. The company says the closure was developed as part of an overall marketing strategy that involves targeting drinks at specific sporting occasions involving a ball.

The cap can be used with a humanoid shape bottle to represent a sportperson of the particular event.

"The cap solves the inherent problem of tightness of spout fit to ensure a good seal making release of the spout difficult,"​ the company stated in a press release. "This functional improvement is achieved by adopting a special internal screw thread which raises and lowers the spout by twisting the ball."​

The current design is based on the standard 28mm neck and can have a single or dual tamper evidence closure.

Meanwhile O.Berk​ has introduced a new line of clear window silver tins ranging in size from 4-oz. to 16-oz. sizes. The containers are seamless and deep-style, with rolled safety edges on both the cans and covers.

The clear window on the cover is made of polystyrol, a variation of polystyrene. The window can labelled using silk-screening or by pressure sensitive methods.

"They offer a more visual approach to packaging products and provide a clear advantage over other metal containers,"​ O.Berk stated.

If the product within is UV sensitive, the windows can be protected with a UV inhibitor to preserve product freshness. O.Berk is marketing the package for candy, confections, candles and cosmetics.

Crown Holdings​ and its affiliated companies have won nine awards for packaging from the Metal Packaging Manufacturers' Association (MPMA).

The overall winner in the flour and sugar confectionery category, was Crown's book-shaped package for Thorntons.

Crown also won the giftware category for containers developed for Twinings' reserve range of Golden Tip teas. The tins balance soft colour with matte and gloss varnishes, Crown stated.

Crown incorporated graphics in to the design of acontainer for Nicolas Feuillatte champagne. The container won the promotional category. It is constructed from holographic polymer-coated steel, creating strong shelf appeal and reinforcing the company's sophisticated brand image, Crown stated.

Crown Bevcan Europe and Middle East was the overall winner in the alcoholic beverages category for its 50cl aluminium promotional can developed for the 1664 brand from Brasseries Kronenbourg, part of the UK's Scottish and Newcastle Group.

The can is designed by Philippe Starck and is decorated with a new ink technology developed by Crown. The technology creates a "pearl-like" quality to the can's graphics when it is rotated under light.

"The resulting effect adds a luxury appeal to the already successful Kronenbourg brand,"​ Crown stated.

In the US, H.J. Heinz is appealing to children by using a bottle with three different types of squirt action. The closure for the company's ketchup, made by Graham Packaging​, has three different-shaped openings, known as "splat", "double, double" and "draw".

The closure gives kids the choice of how they want to put ketchup on their food.

"Heinz wanted a round container with a large billboard or label space to promote the idea of three different dispensing patterns for kids to enjoy as they applied the ketchup,"​ stated Joe Labadie, new product development engineer for Graham Packaging.

Graham Packaging designed a 20-ounce, clear PET container with multi-layer barrier properties and an unusually large neck opening of 43 milliliters.

The bottle is topped by a trio of pop-up caps over the opening. Seaquist Closures was also involved in developing a bottle that kids can hold and manipulate.