Four innovations struck me as particularly worthy of note yesterday, at the Packaging Innovation Event held in London, at Islington’s Business Design centre.
Packlinc is the name of a digital labelling innovation, from entrepreneurial printing plate makers, Northumberland based Reproflex 3 Ltd. Here the code to link to a company’s website is embedded in the coloured graphics on pack so there is no need for a QR code and it does rather more than a visual only Augmented Reality graphic. As Marketing Manager Benedict Moore explained “This is true innovation that has been commercialised and is ready to go – in fact it is already incorporated in snack brand Pom Bear’s Halloween packaging – to be seen on the shelves of European supermarkets right now”.
Parkside Flexibles Europe has further developed military innovation for the food and beverage sector with self-heating cook packs and pouches.
Business Development manager Richard Turnbull demonstrated how they are trying to promote this now in the food and beverage sector. For instance, they were displaying a hand size hot chocolate or soup snack pack concept in foil packaging. To heat, you simply peel back the flap to allow the zinc oxide to reach the air, leave to heat for two minutes, then tear to open and eat. Of course this has great potential for the ‘on the go’ baby food sector and for soups and hot drinks for anyone away from a microwave or heat source.
In the Luxury Packaging area, Do Designs had an impressive stand aimed at promoting sales of high end branded spirits and champagnes in bards and clubs. And as we all know, many of these fabulous ideas become less expensive with time and filter through to other sectors. Paris based Dapy shared the stand and is the French subsidiary responsible for a glittering surge of upmarket innovation. Sales manager Marc Bruneau talked me through some of the latest items:
The light-up plastic label on the Hennessy Cognac bottle, released a year ago has been improved to be slimmer in format with a longer battery life. Built in between layers of plastic it is operated by pressing on the label. Affixed to the bottle using 3M tape, this ‘look at me’ label is symptomatic of progress within the labelling sector with ‘glow in the dark’ and fluorescent inks also growing trends.
Also on this stand were two posh ice ideas, including a transparent gold rimmed mini bath of silver octoids that contain ‘not water but something else’ (he could not say) to chill the drinks of super rich clubbers for longer. While the reverse of the Belvedere Vodka box incorporates an ice tray to create ice shards – more in the manner of ‘Frozen’ than the usual standard shape ice cubes.
Finally, a wizard way to speed up pack, carton and bottle design, Italian founder, CEO, web engineer and packaging designer, Guiseppe Priorello has developed Packly. It’s a website for rapid New Product Development – no more hanging around waiting on CAD files and sending them to and fro. Take a look at the site and scan through the options – you can float in your graphics to see just how your product will look once finished.
After a busy day interviewing and absorbing, I went on to Frederic’s in Camden Passage to hear top chef Valentine Warner talk about his love of trees and how foraging – once the food of the poor – is now on many of the world’s top restaurant menus. This event was in support of the PEFC who promote sustainabile forest management through global forest certification.
Together with AB Packaging they are encouraging brand owners and retailers to use paper bags – in August the UK Government announced that they are to introduce a 5p charge levy on all single-use plastic bags in England with effect from October 2015. Sustainability was certainly high on the Packaging Innovation Show menu – you can read more in Beverage Innovation Magazine.
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