News

04/08/2021

SIPA’s Duo Mini Stackable is up for an Oscar

An innovative and sustainable concept for packaging dry foods could bring SIPA a prize for Best Packaging from the Italian Packaging Institute in a few weeks’ time. The Design Week show is being held in Milan from September 4 to 10, and all week, finalists for the Best Packaging Awards 2021 – organized by the Institute (Istituto Italiano Imballaggio), in collaboration with the Fondazione Carta Etica del Packaging (Foundation for Ethical Card in Packaging) – will be on display at the Mimmo Scognamiglio gallery in the Brera Design District of the city. SIPA executives will be around to meet customers visiting the exhibition and talk about sustainable packaging.


In all, there are 27 finalists, and SIPA’s Duo Mini Stackable is one of them. Award winners will be announced at a ceremony on 19 October, during the RE-CONOMY conference organized by Italian financial newspaper Il Sole 24 Ore and Conai, the national non-profit consortium that promotes recovery and recycling of packaging.


Ten awards, nicknamed “Packaging Oscars,” are up for grabs. The categories are for packaging that is Responsible, Balanced, Safe, Accessible, Transparent, Informative, Contemporary, Far-sighted, Educational and Sustainable. It almost goes without saying that the packaging also has to look great and perform to the highest standards. The SIPA Duo Mini Stackable has been nominated in four categories: Responsible, Informative, Far-Sighted, and Educational.


SIPA Duo Mini Stackable shows off in the best way how small, beautifully designed plastic bottles can be packed in cardboard packaging in a highly sustainable way. Two stackable bottles produced in 100% post-consumer PET using XTREME Renew, the highly innovative technology developed by SIPA in collaboration with Austrian recycling technology specialist Erema, are packed in personalized boxes made from 100% recycled cardboard.


SIPA conceived the Duo Mini Stackable for packaging spices, nuts, dried fruits, pulses and the like. The two identical containers have bases with accentuated hollows, reminiscent of those in wine bottles, so that one can fit snuggly on top of another in a compact arrangement in the box, and then later on the kitchen shelf. There is no labelling on the bottles, which makes them perfectly ready for recycling another time after use. All graphic communication is printed directly on the cardboard of the secondary packaging, which is assembled without the use of adhesives – again facilitating recycling.


XTREME Renew technology makes it possible to produce preforms directly from PET flakes, thus avoiding all the steps related to the production of rPET granules, with a consequent reduction in energy, logistics and industrial consumption and costs. To ensure full compliance with contact with food, before extrusion, PET flakes are subjected to washing / decontamination using the Erema’s Vacurema system.


SIPA’s XTREME extrusion-injection-compression molding technology allows a weight reduction of around 10% compared with regular injection molding technology (each container weighs just 7.6g), while the use of 100% rPET cuts CO2 emissions by 80% compared with production using virgin PET.