Packaging professionals pick top packages

Fifty-one packages were chosen as winners overall, including 15 in the food category and three in beverage. A panel of judges chooses the winners based on innovation, protection, economics, performance, marketing and environmental impact.

One of two top winners was the Frito-Lay 24 Sack, which is a compact, pantry-friendly handled sack with easy opening. It replaces the traditional shrink-wrapped corrugated tray, providing Frito-Lay with more billboard while reducing package weight by 85 percent.

The other winners:

• Folgers coffee's AromaSeal plastic canister replaces the 150-year-old steel can. It also won a DuPont award.
• Also winner of a DuPont is the Ensure adult nutritional drink bottle, a resealable bottle that withstands thermal processing.
• British grocery chain Marks & Spencer uses a microwaveable retort pouch with easy-opening laser scoring and gravure-printed graphics. Imperial Sugar's shaker for both powdered sugar and cinnamon & sugar brings innovation to the sugar category, a segment that has been unchanged for more than 25 years.
• Imperial Sugar also wins for a stand-up pouch for its granulated sugar. It's easy to open, reclosable, waterproof and will not leak.
• Tetra Pak's Recart package for Hormel and Stagg chili for the first time puts solid food in a retorted paperboard carton.
• Pillsbury Treat Toppers, squeeze frosting from J. M. Smucker Co., transforms everyday baked goods into personalized treats.
• Homestyle Express recently introduced Asian Style Selections, separate entrees and cooked rice in shelf-stable microwaveable pouches.
• Commercial Packaging wins for the Perfect Popper microwave popcorn, replacing the traditional bag with a carton that doubles as the serving bowl.
• Sonoco wins for the Linearpak canister, which carries both Signature Snacks' Flipz chocolate covered pretzels and Pepperidge Farm's new Mini Nantucket chocolate chunk cookies.
• The new Pop Secret snack-sized microwave popcorn bag has a pull-string opening feature and shallow bowl shape for easy access.
• Kellogg's Eggo syrup package is a custom, 23-oz. polyethylene terephthalate stretch/blow bottle with Seaquist's 38-mm Simplisqueeze Snap Top closure.
• Kellogg also wins for Drink 'n Crunch, a cereal-carrying vessel with one cup inside the other. Fresh milk is poured into the outer cup and cereal into the inner one for a portable breakfast.
• Graham Packaging Co. produced the ATP bottle, a panel-less hot-fill 15.2-oz. PET beverage bottle capable of filling up to 185 degrees F without the use of hot-fill vacuum panels in the sidewall of the container.
• Graham Packaging wins again for a 64-oz. rectangular juice bottle that has 25 percent more cube efficiency than a round bottle.
• Cadbury Schweppes Beverages North America capitalizes on the growing trend of flavored martinis and other drinks with Rose's Cocktail Infusions in elegant, wavy-shaped glass bottles that fit together.
  
  The winners will be honored during the AmeriStar Awards Reception held during Pack Expo International, this year at 5-7 pm on Tuesday, Nov. 9, in the Regency Ballroom of the Hyatt Regency McCormick in Chicago.