Not a day goes by that we don’t have to deal with them. We use them to pack, preserve and protect, but also to transport. So what are we talking about? We’re talking about packaging and everything that goes with it.
1. The Oscars ceremony
The Packaging Oscars ceremony has been held every year since 1955. The event has become a must, even a compulsory milestone in the race for innovation. It’s a veritable hymn to imagination and creativity, no matter how unusual. For decades, this event has been shining a spotlight on avant-garde new solutions and other ingenious ‘discoveries’, using a range of different angles as selection criteria. In a more targeted and specialised way, this event could be likened to the Cannes Film Festival, which awards Oscars for the best films and actors.
The Packaging Oscars, on the other hand, reward and congratulate winners from a wide range of sectors, including commerce, industry and logistics. All these sectors invest in R&D to bring innovative methods and concepts to the world of packaging. These technologies, functionalities and new designs enable the sector to improve the future by taking into account three fundamental objectives: eco-responsibility, economy and efficiency.
The sheer number of parameters to be taken into account meant that it was not possible to be satisfied with a single recognition. That’s why the organisers logically and judiciously created several categories. This sectorisation has the merit of “opening up” the debates from different angles, called categories.
- Transformation category (trades/materials)
- Production category
- Printing and Digital Technology Category
- Environment & CSR category
- Promising Debut Category
- Category Initiative COVID 19
The challenge facing manufacturers and businesses is to come up with ever more effective and innovative packaging solutions to meet market demand, taking into account storage, transport and distribution constraints before ending up in the hands of the customer. According to the website of the French Ministry of Higher Education and Research, €31.1 billion was spent on innovation in France.
2. Raja wins Oscar for Blocbox wedging solution
This year, 90 entries were received and 23 Oscars were awarded for the 65th edition, including 1 in the production distribution logistics category for Raja’s Blocbox cushioning material.
Blocbox impressed the expert jury with its relevance and versatility. What qualities should an ideal cushioning material have? Firstly, for obvious reasons of transport savings, it should be light. Rather voluminous to fill the void in packages. It should have as low a carbon impact as possible, taking into account the cycle from production to end-of-life. Finally, ideally, it should protect the object being transported to ensure it is received correctly. It is important to understand that this last point has a real impact.
To get a better idea of the very negative aspects of poorly packed parcels, let’s look at an example. If an Internet user orders a manufactured item X and receives it broken, the item must be thrown away immediately. This object has to be thrown away immediately and therefore becomes waste to be recycled, with all the environmental constraints that this entails. But it doesn’t stop there, because the factory that produced the object has to make another one to replace it. This will require new raw materials and an energy-intensive process, which has an impact on the carbon footprint.
Then there’s the whole chain of delivery, storage and packaging, only to have to take to the road again, or worse, the air, to finally arrive, hopefully in good condition… In short, these problems of breakage and disputes are the real bane of e-commerce.
We haven’t gone into the parallel aspects such as customer satisfaction, which takes a hit, and the disastrous economic repercussions that ensue. As you read these lines, you probably had no idea of the importance of the role played by genuine dunnage.
The Blocbox product definition provides real answers to all these conditions for damage-free transport. The two “protection efficiency” and “sustainable sourcing” labels obtained by the manufacturer validate all these points through a rigorous and technical approach.
So it’s only logical that this Blocbox cushioning material should win this prestigious Oscar. It’s a spotlight for a material that works in the shadows and doesn’t make a fuss, literally or figuratively. In a humorous way, you could say that Blocbox is the close protection of your shipments, or to put it more graphically, the “bodyguard” of your order.
More generally, it is part of an approach that aims to be responsible by taking into account the multiple issues of the various parties involved. During its journey, a parcel undergoes a great deal of handling and changes of location. The Blocbox cushioning solution manages all these inconveniences by protecting your product not only from the various vibrations, shocks, scratches and temperature variations, but also from the humidity it suffers during its journey. Find out more about our cushioning solutions. In short, the Blocbox solution is economical, eco-responsible and protective (efficient), made in France and labelled 100% recycled and recyclable.
Blocbox’s cushioning solution works alongside major brands