Packaging innovation competition

The Cofresco Institute has launched the 3rd edition of its Innovation Prizes for household packaging for the year 2004.

Created by Cofresco, Europe's leading name in household packaging, the research topic selected for the 2004 Innovation Prizes is: 'New ideas or solutions to help consumers keep food fresh for a longer timeat home'. The institute says that the solution/concept has to comply with European food legislation in order to qualify.

The topic has been chosen because foods are at their freshest when they have just been picked and keeping them that way is of increasing importance for food safety and nutritional contents. At home, packaging, storage and preparation must help to preserve this originalquality as long as possible. Quality of food may diminish through poor food packaging, transportation and storage, as well as from natural spoilage.

The research topic for the year 2004 focuses on solutions for food packaging or handling at home.

The concept applies to household packaging and not to industrialpackaging. Any solution enabling consumers to keep food fresh for a longertime at home, while preserving its nutritional value, may be submitted.

Eligible research fields are: food freshness and value preservation,solutions ensuring or guaranteeing food quality, as well as active packaging or similar solutions.

The Scientific Committee will select two projects among those presented andwill award the €10,000 prize to each successful project. The participants' proposalsmust be sent in by mail and postmarked before midnight 31 March 2004 atthe latest, to the following address: Cofresco Institute, 2004 InnovationPrizes, Melittastr.17, D-32427 Minden, Germany.

This competition is open to independent researchers, research teams, publicand private laboratories as well as private individuals.

Selection criteria:Projects will be examined by the Scientific Committee on the basis of the innovative aspect of the project, scientific value and benefits for consumers.

Detailed rules and the application form are available on www.cofrescoinstitute.com​.

The winner of the Institute's 2003 prize will be announced on 3 July in Germany. The deadline for competition entries was the end of March.

The Cofresco Institute's mission is "to provide consumers with smart and enjoyable solutions for food care",​ said Gilles Maillet, Cofresco's Europeandirector of marketing, sales and R&D and president of the Scientific Committee.

The Institute was founded in 2001 to support the advancement of research inthe field of household packaging. The Cofresco company was founded in 1996 as a joint venture between the Melitta Group(Germany) and SC Johnson (US). The company has 330 employees and its headoffice is located in Paris.