MADISON, WI (May 17, 2013) – Placon, a leading North American designer and thermoformer of custom packaging for the retail, medical and food markets, with an extensive line of stock products and environmentally-friendly extruded PET sheet, has received a DuPont Gold Award for its innovative Gillette Venus & Olay package.

“The DuPont Awards for Packaging Innovation is an opportunity to showcase the value of packaging and celebrate the power of collaboration in bringing innovative ideas to market,” said Shanna Moore, program leader, DuPont Awards for Packaging Innovation, DuPont Packaging & Industrial Polymers, “The Gillette Venus & Olay project embodies that spirit.”

A new line in the Venus product family, the Venus & Olay package design replaces the current packaging platform which utilizes PVC material and an injection molded tray.

“Placon is proud to be recognized by DuPont’s expert judging panel for our collaboration on the P&G Gillette Venus & Olay packaging project,” stated Dan Mohs, CEO – Placon. “It’s often difficult to design and commercialize a product that is not only consumer-friendly, but also improves production efficiencies, meets sustainability goals and just as importantly, increases sales. We believe that we struck that fine balance with the Gillette partnership and strongly feel that this project showcases how a close collaboration between Placon design engineers and the customer can drive innovation.”

Designing Packaging for the Consumer
From the first “moment of truth,” the package delivers a “wow” factor in the sea of women’s razor products. Once purchased, the package’s outer blister is easy for the consumer to open with its unique perforated finger tab opening, produced in a single operation on high-speed thermoforming equipment. The package’s finger access slot concentrates the opening force area, allowing the consumer to easily bend the top formed part backwards 180 degrees, enabling the consumer to slide the inner tray out without ever touching the perforated opening area. The package’s innovative inner “carrier,” a thin-gauge rigid thermoform, utilizes both sides of the tray to retain the razor’s components on multiple planes in multiple-sized cavities.

Designing Packaging for Sustainability
The package’s shallow insert is manufactured with Placon’s EcoStar ThermoPET™ PC50 sheet with up to 100% post-consumer recycled content from bottles and thermoforms that have been diverted from waste streams. The entire Venus & Olay package now utilizes 29% less plastic content than the previous Venus product line packaging platform.

ABOUT DUPONT PACKAGING INNOVATION AWARDS
Now in its 25th year, the DuPont Awards for Packaging Innovation is the industry’s longest-running, global, independently judged celebration of innovation and collaboration throughout the value chain. Each year an esteemed panel awards diamond, gold or silver honors based on “excellence” ratings in one or all of three categories: Innovation, Sustainability; and Cost/Waste Reduction.

ABOUT PLACON
For 55 years, Placon has been a leading designer and manufacturer of custom and stock plastic packaging for the food, medical, and retail markets. Placon has manufacturing operations in Madison, WI; Elkhart, IN; Plymouth, MN; and West Springfield, MA, and currently ranked in Plastics News 2020 Thermoformers Ranking Top 20. Placon delivers packaging breakthroughs that inspire better engagement between people and products with industry leading innovation and award-winning packaging designs. For more information, visit www.placon.com.