Design Futures win at this years UK Packaging Awards

 

The Design Futures Packaging team within the ADMRC in SSA have won 2 awards at this years UK Packaging Awards, one of the UK ‘s biggest packaging competitions. The team has won ‘Design Team of the Year’ and also ‘Resource Efficient Pack of the year’.

 

It is the 4^th time in the last 6 years that we have won the design team award and this is incredible considering the size and the calibre of the companies who we have been shortlisted against. No other academic institutions are represented at the awards which typically attracts leading packaging companies and major retail brands. Our ‘Team of the Year’ award included work for major companies, local businesses in the Sheffield city region and some of our research work from within SHU. The ‘Resource Efficient’ award was for a project we completed for leading pet product company ‘Company of Animals’. Environmentally responsible packaging is at the heart of all our work so winning this award is particularly pleasing. The project led to the removal of 600,000 plastic packs in the first year of usage and is projected to save 16 million packs over the next 10 years.

 

The Design Futures team provides an excellent service to businesses providing cutting edge structural packaging design independent of manufacture. We work regularly for major retailers and brand owners and also support a large amount of local SMEs through ERDF funded programmes. We have recently completed projects for Marie Curie, Amazon, Samworth Brothers and Smurfit Kappa as well as providing structural packaging design support for over 100 local businesses through the Sheffield Innovation Programme and the Scale Up 360 funding initiative. We are focussed on environmentally responsible solutions using sustainable materials and designing out the need for single use plastics whenever possible.  We have also supported businesses recently with their Covid 19 business strategies helping them move from tradition retail environments to online sales.