Our exciting new pack closure concept, ‘Snap In’ received a bronze award at the coveted Starpack awards in September. This is the third time we’ve entered a pack into the awards and the third time we have walked away as winners.

The original ‘Snap In’ concept was developed for a new style of hat box that gave the product more visibility whilst providing good protection. The award winning application though was somewhat different and was developed in collaboration with our customer Staeger Clear packaging. Staeger are UK leaders in transparent packaging solutions.

One of their customers is a leading horticultural supplier to supermarket chain Tesco for the Finest brand of luxury exotic houseplants. They wanted to re-launch the plant range with improved packaging that was easier to assemble and had safer, simpler access to the plant by the store customer. Staeger supply the protective sleeve for the pack, which is die cut and creased and screen printed in 2 colours to the Finest branding. The previous packs had a fibre base that was connected to the protective sleeve with plastic non-returnable rivets. This required the purchaser to cut through the pack with a blade or scissors to access the plant.

Snap In eliminates the need for any sharp tools as they are simply unclipped and detached from the sleeve. Snap In provides a strong versatile base to a wide variety of pack shapes and sizes made up of 2 or more parts. The Snap In feature enables the base to be attached quickly and simply to the rest of the pack giving it extra rigidity and strength. A series of press stud tabs fold up from the base and snap into die punched holes in the sleeve. Precision manufacturing of the tabs provides a perfect fit and a strong union between base and sleeve. The ceramic pot sits snugly onto its own plinth giving an enhanced look to the finished pack.

The sleeve and base are made from recycled PET that is produced from material with a minimum of 50% post consumer waste content that can in turn be recycled. A ribbon carry handle is attached to the top of the sleeve to complete the pack, making it easier to transport from store to home.

The initial enquiry from Staeger was made at the end of February. Designs were produced and prototypes approved prior to manufacturing all tooling at Macpac’s impressive in-house tooling division. Production runs soon followed. The project ran so smoothly that plants were appearing in-store in their new packs all over the country. The timing of the introduction of Snap In couldn’t have been better for the Starpack entry and was fully deserving of recognition with an award.

The versatility of the Snap In concept presents great potential for a wide variety of applications. It can be manufactured in virtually any shape to package small hand size items all the way up to the base for large merchandising units. It is a truly innovative new concept in packaging.

Graham and Sarah Kershaw traveled to London to be presented with the Silver Starpack Award for Surecel – the ultimate self locking clamshell range. The award was presented by Sanjay Patel of Coca Cola in the Creative and Sustainable category for Technical Innovation. Macpac have only ever submitted entries to the Starpack awards on two ocassions and both have been successful. The first entry swept the board with a gold award for technical innovation.

Graham was delighted with the award stating ‘its always nice to be recognised by industry specialists that what we do is technically smart and deserving of an award. It makes a change from only us telling our customers; now they can hear it from unbiased third parties which adds credibility to what we do’.

The judging panel considered the Surecel range to be a ‘real alternative to a welded pack’. The advantage of this is that the packaging doesn’t have to be destroyed to get to the product once the end user has made the purchase. Destroyed packaging in product returns make the product more difficult to re-sell and usually requires discounting. Surecel packs offer high security but can be opened without damaging, albeit a blunt instrument is required.

A returned product can then be re-sold without discounting which is a big plus for the retailer. Another advantage with the Surecel range is the fact that in addition to a standard range of shapes and sizes, for which there is no tooling cost that keeps pricing competitive, the entire range can be customised with an add-on shape to precisely fit the product but at a cost that would be considerably less than a newly designed and produced bespoke tool.

All tooling is done in-house which makes for even more competitive pricing of finished goods.