Alupro, the aluminium packaging recycling organisation, has announced the winner of the ‘personal daily care product and brand’ category at this year’s 2022 Student Starpack Awards.

Jake Inglis, from Nottingham Trent University, took home first place, as well as the overall gold award.

Alongside a £500 cash prize, Jake also won a VIP visit to one of Crown Packaging’s UK beverage can plants. Here, he will receive a behind the scenes tour of the facility and see the company’s innovative packaging manufacturing processes first-hand.

As part of his entry, Jake created ‘ernære’ (Danish for ‘nourish’), a reusable, recyclable, single material stackable packaging solution for home beauty products. Designed to save space and minimise reliance on single-use containers, the prototype features a proprietary interlocking system that enables consumers to stack products on top of each other quickly and safely.

Organised by the Institute of Materials, Minerals and Mining (IOM3), the Student Starpack Awards challenged university students to create or redesign packaging for a daily personal care product, moving away from traditional plastic/flexible/multi-material/glass containers and instead embracing an infinitely recyclable aluminium solution.

Tom Giddings, Alupro’s executive director, commented: “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. Congratulations, Jake, a hugely deserving winner of this year’s award!

Jake Inglis added: “The brief was a lot of fun to work on; exploring the versatility of aluminium for packaging applications was really interesting. This project allowed me to explore its properties – from manufacturing to application – and present back a solution that could save space and reduce packaging waste.

“I’d like to thank IOM3 for the opportunity and my tutors for their support throughout the competition. I’m looking forward to visiting one of Crown Packaging’s beverage can plants to learn more about the aluminium packaging manufacturing process.”

Entries for the 2023 Student Starpack Awards are open now. For more information, visit: www.iom3.org/starpack. For more information about Alupro, visit: www.alupro.org.uk.