WPO honours World Star award-winners in Prague

More than 97 winners from over 25 countries attended the ceremony held concurrently with WPO’s first board meeting of 2019, executive meeting and working group meetings.

Pierre Pienaar, WPO president, said, “The awards celebrate and preserve the collective achievements of these great innovators in perpetuities.”

At the event, India bagged 12 awards with Cadila Healthcare bagging four awards; Danone India and Hutahmaki bagging two; Jps Plastics, Cadila Pharmaceuticals, Kanodia Technoplast and Jigna Shah Oza, received one award each.

The judges were elected from all over the world with a minimum of one from each continent.

Apart from the usual World Star categories such as in the segment of beverages, electronics, food, health and personal care, amongst others, the winners of the special award categories such as the president´s award, sustainability, marketing and packaging that saves food award, were also announced at the event.

The gold winners award was handed to Smileysys from Italy who was honoured for its ‘Drop and Taste’ pack - a pack that has 30% plastic reduction and enables logistics optimisation, and the gold sustainability award winner went to the Jospak Oy Tray of Finland for packaging that combines the functionalities of board and plastics, with 85% less plastic.

Keith Chessell of Australia, Gill Loubser of South Africa, and Shahid Sheikh of UK, were awarded the lifetime achievement award in packaging which is established with the aim of acknowledging and rewarding excellence in all aspects of packaging science, technology, design and application across every country around the world.

Gill Loubser said, “Naturally, having spent the last 40 years writing about the packaging industry, I'm delighted and extremely gratified to be recognised in this way. But I must also comment that I am, in fact, being honoured for doing something that I have loved doing.”India bagged 12 awards with Cadila Healthcare bagging four awards; Danone India and Hutahmaki bagging two; Jps Plastics, Cadila Pharmaceuticals, Kanodia Technoplast and Jigna Shah Oza, received one award each.

Among the top award-winning countries were Japan with 26 awards, Turkey with 22 and China with 21 awards.