Australian food and drink packages were among those honoured in Sydney last night when the international WorldStar Packaging Awards ceremony took place at AUSPACK PLUS.
The 2013 edition of the awards, organised by the World Packaging Organisation, saw trophies awarded to 159 winners from around the world.
The awards this year had a total of 316 entries from 33 different countries. Of these, the beverages category had 78 entries and 41 took a WorldStar, while The food category had 42 winners from 81 entries.
Australian packaging designs had a strong presence in this year’s awards. Melbourne's Outerspace Design led the Australian charge, winning in three categories.
Outerspace's wins included a WorldStar for Hydralyte Sports in the Health and Beauty category, and for Berri's Daily Juice on-the-go bottles in Beverages. Last year it won a WorldStar for its breakthrough design of Heinz's Golden Circle chilled juice 1.8-litre bottle in what was Australia's inaugural year at the prestigious international awards.
Local Coke bottler Coca-Cola Amatil (CCA) also won in the Beverages category for its Easy Crush bottle for Mount Franklin mineral water, as did Poppet International for its innovative bottles for Bebi infant juice.
All the winning packs had already tasted success at last year's Packaging Council of Australia's Australian Packaging Design Awards, which had made them eligible for the WorldStar awards.
The awards are open only to organisations who have won in approved national competitions around the world.
A few special awards were presented later in the evening. In the Sustainability category, CCA’s Mount Franklin Easy Crush bottle was named the bronze winner, giving Australia yet another honour. The Infini Bottle by Nampak of the UK won silver, while gold went to Loop Pallet, by IPG of Sweden.
For the first time, WPO presented awards for Marketing, with the inaugural gold award going to the J&B Twister pack, by the UK’s MW Creative.
The final award of the evening went to Australian packaging industry veteran, Harry Lovell, who was honoured for his decades of contribution to the packaging industry.
WPO president, Thomas Schneider, said: "Once again the WorldStar Ceremony brings together packaging leaders from all over the world for a singular purpose: to receive recognition from the most important packaging competition globally and confirm their packaging projects are making a difference for a better world."
The Outerspace team celebrate their WorldStar Award wins. From left, Michael Grima, Bryan Terry, Sergei Plishka, and Michael Denham.
