German Packaging Award 2024 for Sweet Honey: KURZ and SCRIBOS accept award at FACHPACK

Fürth/Germany, September 25, 2024: The German Packaging Award is the largest European showcase for packaging and is awarded annually by the German Packaging Institute (dvi) to the most innovative packaging solutions. This year, LEONHARD KURZ and its subsidiary SCRIBOS prevailed among almost 250 submissions from 13 countries and received the coveted award in the digitalization category. A honey packaging designed by KURZ, which can support the fight against honey counterfeiting with special security features, was honored. This year, the winners of the German Packaging Award were honored at FACHPACK, which made the award ceremony a very special highlight for those involved in the project at KURZ and SCRIBOS.

Counterfeit-proof concept with intelligent features

The innovative Sweet Honey packaging concept impressed the top-class jury of experts with its intelligent combination of digital and analogue components to create individualized counterfeit protection. The smart packaging solution from KURZ subsidiary SCRIBOS uses the copy-protected security marking SCRIBOS ValiGate^®. This innovative feature allows consumers to check the authenticity of the product by simply scanning the individualized QR codes on the packaging and to call up additional information such as the origin of the honey or nutritional information. There is no need to download a separate app, making the application particularly user-friendly.

Exceptionally staged: The mysterious world of bees

The honey packaging designed by Julia König, Senior Designer at KURZ Design Management, sends consumers on a visual journey into a beehive. Opening the outer packaging reveals the mysterious world of bees. They crawl on stylized honeycombs and process the honey, which is revealed through holes in the label. The individually printed bees on each pack serve as a decorative element and also as a security feature thanks to the link with ValiGate^® . Unusual tactile effects such as fine dots and different types of paper give the Sweet Honey design a unique character. The metallization of the packaging label was implemented with the DM-JETLINER 2D. The DM-MAXLINER 3D was used for the packaging finishing.

Special recognition in the exclusive setting of FACHPACK

The German Packaging Award has been honoring particularly innovative packaging since 1996. This year, the coveted prizes were awarded on September 24, 2024 as part of FACHPACK, the leading European trade fair for the packaging industry, in Nuremberg. Julia König and Dr. Steffen Scheibenstock accepted the award on site. "Our Sweet Honey project was presented for the first time at drupa 2024. It was a special honor for us to see the packaging and the ValiGate^® developed by SCRIBOS there. The fact that we have now won an award for Sweet Honey and that our project is gaining attention in this context is an incredibly great feeling, a tremendous appreciation for the efforts and the innovative path we wanted to take with Sweet Honey. We are very proud of this.", says Julia König.

Dr. Steffen Scheibenstock, Head of Digital Business Development at SCRIBOS, is also delighted with the award: "With Sweet Honey, we have succeeded in creating a secure and sustainable product that is second to none thanks to state-of-the-art technology, well thought-out design and environmentally friendly features. This is the best combination of digital printing, digital finishing and copy protection that I have seen on the market to date - including the sophisticated two-factor authentication with the variable bees and individually metallized codes. The German Packaging Award is a special recognition of our holistic approach. It shows us that the path we have taken is visionary." Sweet Honey not only sets new standards in the fight against counterfeit products. The project also stands for sustainability in packaging design and a promise of quality that creates trust among consumers. Anna-Lena Warnecke-Fischer, Project Manager DIGITAL METAL^® at KURZ, supervised the implementation of the finishing on the DM-UNILINER 2D and the DM-UNILINER 3D from KURZ. Warnecke-Fischer is also proud of the award: "It's great to see that the work on this project has paid off and that we now not only have such an excellently coordinated and unique product, but have also been honored with the German Packaging Award. Of course, it's a great feeling to hold the award in our hands!"

More information about the award for KURZ and SCRIBOS can be found on the website of the German Packaging Award 2024 https://www.verpackung.org/en/events/deutscher-verpackungspreis/auszeichnungen/sweet-honey