Last week (18 August), Jake Inglis, winner of the Alupro-sponsored ‘personal daily care product and brand’ category at the 2022 Student Starpack Awards, was taken on a VIP tour of Crown’s state-of-the-art R&D facility in Wantage.

Providing a priceless opportunity to go behind the scenes at one of the UK’s leading packaging design centres, Jake was joined by key members of the judging panel and was given the chance to spend time with Crown’s talented design innovation team. In addition to the tour, Jake took home £500 to progress his studies at Nottingham Trent University.

Organised by the Institute of Materials, Minerals and Mining (IOM3), the 2022 Student Starpack Awards challenged university students to create or redesign packaging for a daily personal care product, moving away from traditional plastic/flexible/multi-material/glass containers and instead embracing an infinitely recyclable aluminium solution.

As part of his entry, Jake created ‘ernære’ (Danish for ‘nourish’), a reusable, recyclable, single material stackable packaging solution for home beauty products. Designed to save space and minimise reliance on single-use containers, his prototype featured a proprietary interlocking system that would enable consumers to stack products on top of each other quickly and safely.

Tom Giddings, Alupro’s executive director, commented: “We were hugely impressed by each of the entries submitted this year, but the ernære prototype really stood out. Jake’s unique design was incredibly well thought out and demonstrated the potential aluminium offers for space-saving, multi-use, practical circular packaging solutions.

“It was easy to picture the stackable containers as a production-ready product, with the interlocking system highlighting Jake’s understanding of ergonomics in design.”

Jake added: “Being involved in the Student Starpack Awards was a really enjoyable process from start to finish – the project allowed me to explore the versatility of aluminium packaging and present back a solution that could help users save space and reduce packaging waste.

“As a product design student, being given the opportunity to tour one of the UK’s most renowned aluminium packaging R&D facilities was a dream come true. I thoroughly enjoyed seeing the site and getting to grips with what a role in packaging design would really entail. I’d like to thank everyone that helped to make the day unforgettable, as well as my tutors for their support throughout the competition.”

Entries for the 2023 Student Starpack Awards are open now. For more information, visit: www.iom3.org/starpack.