Alupro-sponsored Student Starpack Awards winner gets a VIP tour of the R&D centre in Wantage

Jake Inglis, the winner of the Alupro-sponsored category for "personal daily care product and brand" at the 2022 Student Starpack Awards, was given a VIP tour of Crown's cutting-edge R&D centre in Wantage on Thursday, August 18.

Jake was joined by judges and given a chance to interact with Crown's creative design innovation team, providing a rare opportunity to go behind the scenes at one of the UK's top package design centres. Jake received £500 in addition to the trip to further his education at Nottingham Trent University.

“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,” said Tom Giddings, executive director of Alupro.

The Institute of Materials, Minerals and Mining (IOM3) asked college students to develop or remodel packaging for a daily personal care product in 2022, abandoning conventional plastic, flexible, multi-material, or glass containers in favour of an eternally recyclable aluminium alternative.

Jake developed ‘ernære’ (Danish for ‘nourish’), a reusable, recyclable, single-material stackable packaging solution for home beauty items, as part of his submission. His prototype had a patented interlocking mechanism that would allow customers to stack things on top of one another fast and safely. It was created to conserve space and reduce dependency on single-use containers.

“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,” added Jake.