Students Develop New Packaging Concepts
Students from the Food Packaging Technology course at Hanover University of Applied Sciences and Arts have worked with food manufacturer Purmacherei to develop new packaging concepts for their product HaferHaps (Bite of Oats). The goal of the project was to review the current packaging for sustainability and to design new innovative packaging ideas.
The Food Packaging Technology degree program was founded at Hannover University of Applied Sciences and Arts in 2009. In the bachelor’s program, students gain the scientific and practical expertise in seven semesters to develop packaging that meets the diverse requirements of food packaging.
Purmacherei was founded in 2019 as a start-up company by Ritter Sport with the aim of creating snacks from as few natural ingredients as possible. The products are intended to inspire people to eat consciously and purely, while being as sustainable as possible. Purmacherei thus picks up on the concept of clean eating and has successfully implemented it with the HaferHaps. The HaferHaps are made from only five ingredients and are free of refined sugar and additives. The HaferHaps are packaged in stand-up pouches, so-called Doypacks. This was the starting point for the students. First, they examined and evaluated the existing packaging. They made numerous examinations and tests with the HaferHaps to find out which influences particularly damage the product. Once these parameters were determined, three teams worked independently to come up with an innovative packaging solution.
“In order to reflect the sustainable and ‘clean’ idea of the snack in the packaging as well, our team focused primarily on sustainable packaging systems. To this end, we investigated compostable materials, analyzed the recyclability of composite materials, and considered refill concepts. A chic, eye-catching, and sustainable packaging could be designed fairly quickly. The challenge for us now was to develop packaging that could be adapted to current production with minimal effort, yet still be eye-catching on the shelf, convince the customer of the snack, and be suitable as a to-go product,” explains Jessica To, Dipl. Ing., from the Faculty of Mechanical and Bioprocess Engineering at Hanover University of Applied Sciences and Arts. Thus, requirements and ideas resulted in entire evaluation matrices, based on which favorites were selected and presented to the manufacturer Purmacherei.
