Winner announced for Alupro-sponsored category at 2023 Student Starpack Awards

Alupro has revealed the winner of the ‘replacing multi-material packaging’ category at this year’s 2023 Student Starpack Awards. James Albosh, from Nottingham Trent University, took home first place for his prepared meal packaging design.

Alongside taking home £500 to help further his studies, James will receive a VIP tour of one of Crown Packaging’s state-of-the-art UK drink can manufacturing plants. The visit will include behind-the-scenes access to the facility and a Q&A opportunity with the senior design team – a truly money can’t buy prize.

As part of his entry, James created ‘Kahaan’ – a suite of reusable and recyclable packaging materials for prepared meals. Inspired by camping cookware, the design allows consumers to easily stack products on top of each other, while a discrete handle makes it possible to use the packaging as a stovetop cooking vessel.

Organised by the Institute of Materials, Minerals and Mining (IOM3), Alupro’s brief for the Student Starpack Awards challenged university students to create a design to replace multi-material packaging, such as cardboard and film, and instead embracing an infinitely recyclable aluminium solution.

Tom Giddings, executive director at Alupro, commented: “All of the entries submitted this year impressed the judging panel, but James’ design certainly stood out. Our brief encouraged applicants to think about the use of aluminium in innovative packaging design and Kahaan demonstrated that perfectly.

“The concept was incredibly well designed, with the unique bonus of the stove-top cooking feature demonstrating the true versatility of aluminium. A deserved winner of this year’s award. Congratulations, James!”

James Albosh added: “The project really encouraged me to think outside of the box when considering the application of aluminium in sustainable packaging design. Developing the concept was a lot of fun and enabled me to explore the properties of the material and its many capabilities.

“I’d like to thank IOM3 for the opportunity to enter and my tutors for their support throughout the competition. I’m looking forward to visiting one of Crown Packaging’s UK sites to see the manufacturing process first hand.”

For more information about the awards, visit: www.iom3.org/starpack. For more information about Alupro, visit: www.alupro.org.uk.