Every year, the Packaging Cluster of Valencia organises a competition in which several companies issue a challenge to engineering students from all over Spain. This year, three students from the University of Zaragoza have won the Cluster award thanks to a container designed for fruit snacks for the company Sanlucar Fruit.
'On the go' is the commercial term that defines snacks for sale at transit points, hospitals, airports, train stations, etc. That is the target market for the packaging format designed by Eva Gallego, Soraya Fernando and Paola Pequerul; a transparent container that can hold fifty grams of grapes, blueberries or cherries, with a cylindrical shape and a repository for the pits and other waste.
"Looking at the packaging formats for snacks that were on the market, especially cones or the already larger supermarket containers, we saw that there were many possibilities to innovate," explains Eva Gallego. The help of professor Juan Vidal and two and a half months of work have sufficed for these students to develop a model prototype printed in 3D. "It consists of two cylinders, an outer and an inner one (the latter sectioned), and has a separator to ensure that fruit and pits don't mix."
Javier García, packaging director of Sanlucar Fruit, who chose the format designed by the students of Zaragoza university out of sixty submissions, highlighted the "visually attractive and functional" design of Gallego, Fernando and Pequerul. He defined the packaging as "very innovative, suitable for premium fruit." And he added that "it is very ergonomic, can be carried comfortably in one hand and the product is fully visible, so the professionals could not have done better."
Sanlucar Fruit, a company mainly exporting to Europe, is now studying the production of this packaging format with another German company. The authors, third year students of Engineering Design at the EINA, have been given an extra motivation to work in the area with this recognition. And the collaboration continues, as Eva Gallego wants to partner with Sanlucar Fruit for her end of studies project.
