<p>The winning packages in our first-ever Store Brand Packaging Awards competition not only are great-looking and functional, but also effectively communicate the product message to consumers.
Packaging can do much more than just hold and protect a product. It can draw a shopper's eye, communicate a product's message, and even boost a product's convenience quotient. Great packaging accomplishes all of those things – and more. In our first-ever Store Brand Packaging Awards, Progressive Grocer's Store Brands is pleased to honor new store brand packaging that deserves that "great" qualifier.

Our call for entries netted approximately 100 submissions representing hundreds of SKUs. To avoid the potential for bias, we looked outside the packaging design industry to put our panel of judges together. Our judges, packaging editors from UBM Canon's Packaging Digest, collectively boast almost a century of packaging experience. They include John Kalkowski, the publication's editorial director; Lisa Pierce, the publication's editor; and Jack Mans, the publication's plant operations editor.

We divided the entries into four categories: Refrigerated and Frozen Foods, Shelf-Stable Foods, Beverages and Non-Foods. When a line included products under more than one category, we selected the category in which the majority of products fell.

We then instructed the judges to evaluate each entry within a category on three criteria: overall appearance, functionality and communication of the product message. They were told to weigh each criterion equally.

In the end, the judges selected a Gold, Silver and Bronze Award winner within each category. They also honored one overall standout across the categories with the "Best of the Bunch" Award.

In addition, the judges gave Batavia, Ill.-based ALDI Inc., which submitted a number of SKUs for consideration, an honorable mention for placing bar codes on multiple sides of its packaging. The design, the judges say, should work to enhance speed of checkout in ALDI's unique operating environment.


<strong>Shelf-Stable Foods (Gold Award):
</strong>
Nice! line 
Retail company: Walgreen Co., Deerfield, Ill.
Packaging design company: CBX, New York

The judges weigh in:
"I know that Walgreens is using this on a whole bunch of different SKUs, and this shows a very small part of the entire product line. But one thing I like is the way they use the product itself in some type of illustration on every one of the packages," Kalkowski offers. "Even though they are using a white background that's popular with so many brands right now, I think they do it in a way that is not quite as plain Jane as some of the other ones that are out there right now."

It's a clean design," Pierce says. "The color coding is helpful from a shopability point of view. They are using nice, contemporary colors and a clean design."

"I like the continuity of the brand – the way they carry it out throughout the whole range of products," Mans adds.

<a href="http://www.cbx.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/10/PGSB_62012_12c.jpg"><img src="http://www.cbx.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/10/PGSB_62012_12c.jpg" alt="" title="PGSB_62012_12c" width="250" height="84" class="alignnone size-full wp-image-4796" /></a>

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