Flexible  Packaging Association’s annual Achievement Awards competition recognizes innovative flexible packaging from across its membership. The Student Flexible Packaging Design Challenge has become a prestigious competition within the flexible packaging industry honoring flexible packaging solutions developed by students.

Flexible packaging is used to package a wide variety of items. From retail food to medical and pharmaceutical products, the packaging possibilities are endless. The industry also believes it is important to encourage and recognize students who are working to become the next generation of packaging designers. For the 2019 competition, FPA received 42 concept outlines from some of the top packaging design programs across the United States. From the concept outlines submitted, 18 were selected to continue to the development phase.

This year’s entries demonstrated a high level of creativity as well as a strong understanding of the mechanical properties of flexible packaging materials and the manufacturing processes involved. While every winning entry was designed for a different product, they each found an ingenious way to apply flexible packaging to satisfy the growing consumer demand for convenient, easy-to-use packaging.

The judges for the competition included Cory Francer, Senior Editor, packagePRINTING magazine; Robert Kimmel, Sc.D., Associate Professor and Director, Clemson University Center for Flexible Packaging, Clemson University; and David Luttenberger, Global Packaging Director, Mintel Group Ltd.

First place winner of the FPA 2019 Student Flexible Design Challenge was a team of students from the University of Wisconsin—Stout. Second place winner was a student from the Packaging Program at San José State University. Tanay Prabhu worked under the guidance of his professor Dr. Kate Liu on the design concept and prototype.

2nd Place Honors
Car Wash Pods
Tanay Prabhu
San José State University

Car Wash Pods are a new and easy way to store car wash soap, replacing rigid bottles which are large and bulky, and consumers have to measure the required amount of soap needed for use. Each Car Wash Pod holds 1 oz. of soap encapsulated in a water-soluble Polyvinyl Acetate film. To use the pods, consumers place a pod in a 5-gallon bucket and fill the bucket with water to dissolve the film. Car Wash Pods are easy to use and provide consumer convenience.

Congratulations to Tanay Prabhu, student, Department of Nutrition, Food Science and Packaging for this prestigious award.