DS Smith celebrates POPAI Sustainability Award

DS Smith has won a Silver Sustainability Award at this year’s POPAI awards. DS Smith was recognised with the silver award for an Enviro-Merchandising-Unit it created for Nestle.

The unit was developed specifically for use in supermarkets to house Nestlé’s instant coffee range in high footfall areas, with the aim of attracting impulse purchase shoppers. The brief was to create a unit that would ensure maximum brand exposure and be versatile, durable, stylish, on brand and feature a competitive price promotion.
Thanks to the company’s involvement with the POPAI Sustainability Charter, DS Smith designers were able to deliver a unit that not only met Nestlé’s commercial and marketing targets but challenged the traditional MU/Dolly design, to achieve a 33% reduction in material usage and ensure that the unit was highly sustainable.

As well as using 100% recycled board with at least 40% made from recovered fibres and the new approach to design, which along with its reduced material usage, led to the Enviro-Merchandising-Unit title.

The POPAI awards, which were announced on 27th October, recognise the effectiveness of retail displays in increasing sales, securing retail placements and working strategically to position brands in retail.

“Sustainability is a huge focus for DS Smith so we are delighted that our efforts and innovations in this field have been recognised with a Silver POPAI Sustainability Award. “As well as achieving a sustainable solution for Nestle, the EMU was a focused and functional concept which delivered on Nestle’s commercial objectives by maximising brand awareness.”