ITC's Packaging and Printing Business has brought home 14 prizes from the SIES SOP Star Awards! For us, it's a victory of the innovation that defines our work. It's also a reward for always providing exactly those packaging solutions that the customer wants.

The SIES Star awards bring out another ITC story - that we touch lives every day, round the clock. Our award-winning packaging innovations straddle a range of sectors and products, from F&B to apparel - items you use from morning to night.

4 of the 14 awards came for sustainable packaging solutions. These include a compostable envelope for a packaged tea maker, helping reduce the amount of waste that goes to landfills. We also revamped an alcobev carton to make it environment-friendly, and gave it a luxurious look and feel. A dal pouch made of food-grade and re-pulpable paper was another winner in this category, and so was a compostable, germ-free box for a donut company that used the ITC Bioseal technology.

7 more prizes came for premiumizing value-additions for clients in alcobev and foods. We crafted an eye-catching, colourful pouch set for a health food company, and made premium additions to a Mom's Magic Butterfills & Cashewfills pack, a Farmlite Digestive Biscuit carton and a Dark Fantasy gift pack.

We scored 3 top awards in the functional innovations segment! One was for a durable carton for a sportswear giant, and has a sleeve, a double-walled drawer and a base insert, which provide cushioning and a premium unboxing experience. An alcobev client was given a unique, rhombus-shaped label with beautiful texture and embossing - the result of a new process engineering.

For ITC's Candyman Fantastik Choco Bar XL Display carton, we built a quirky package with a novel structural design, targeted to attract young people. The robust, layered, lock-bottom package itself becomes a marketing tool at the point of purchase. The cut-out along the product line makes for better branding.

The SIES SOP Star Awards are given to companies in India for packaging excellence in development, innovation, creativity and sustainability. They especially laud new concepts in packaging.