The Packaging Council of New Zealand officially launched the new awards scheme, the PIDA awards, hosting a cocktail evening in Auckland.
Fonterra donated its Auckland headquarters as the venue for the launch. Sharon Humpheys, executive director of PAC.NZ welcomed an audience of almost 100 guests to the event and introduced Harry Burkhardt, the PACNZ president.
He gave a brief talk around some of the challenges facing packaging professionals and encouraged the assembly to become aware of the zeitgeist around the industry and to take heart and pride in their work. He said, “We are not going to apologise for what we do well – and packaging is what we do.”
Leon Clement, managing director Fonterra Brands, delivered a presentation which outlined some of the work Fonterra has undertaken on the areas of environmental and social sustainability.
Representatives from the Australian Institute of Packaging attended the event and Anthony Peyton from Greenchip and AIP, congratulated Coster Ngirazi and Chris Hartwell, both from Fonterra, on becoming the first packaging technologists in New Zealand to achieve the Certified Packaging Professional qualification, offered to the New Zealand industry through the AIP.
Humphreys took the opportunity to thank Fonterra for providing the venue; Sealed Air and Orora for providing the food and drink; and NCI Packaging and Fuji Xerox for providing promotional material and signage.
The Packaging & Processing Innovation and Design Awards, known as PIDAs, comes from a collaboration between the Packaging Council of New Zealand, the Australian Institute of Packaging, and the Australian Packaging and Processing Machinery Manufacturers Association
The PIDA programme needs partners and guests received information about how to become a partner. Humphreys says, “The PIDA cocktail evening was a huge success. The challenge now is to turn all of the goodwill displayed on the night into signed up partners to get the PIDA programme up and running in 2017.”
Anyone interested in becoming one of the inaugural partners of this event should contact Sharon Humphreys on sharon@packaging.org.nzor 021612052.
