The last two three months have been full of various activities for the packaging industry of Latvia. Autumn is the harvest time – also for packers – the participation of the Packaging Association of Latvia in the international exhibition Riga Food, and the events of the national competition Latvia Star and several conferences.
420 companies from 30 countries participated in the largest food and packaging exhibition in the Baltics Riga Food from 7-9 September. Among the participants – as it has been for almost 20 years – was also the Packaging Association of Latvia, which presented to the visitors of the exhibition most of the works submitted to the national competition Latvia Star. However, compared to previous years’ exhibitions, there were also several special events.
One of them – of international importance – one more confirmation of the close and professional cooperation between the Packaging Association of Latvia and Club Packagers of Ukraine. At the opening ceremony of the Riga Food exhibition, the President of the Club Packagers, Veronika Khalaydzhi, awarded winners of the competitions Ukrainian Packing Star and Ukrainian Label from Latvia – three LV companies submitted their works to Ukrainian national competitions in the spring of 2023. The Chairperson of the Board of the Packaging Association of Latvian Iveta Krauja, together with Veronika Khalaydzhi, participated in the opening of the Ukrainian national stand. Club Packagers had placed a small exhibition here, which was visited by the President of Latvia, Edgars Rinkēvičs, who also conversed with the representatives of Ukraine, while visiting Riga Food exhibition.
The annual exhibition Riga Food traditionally takes place in the second week of September, and this year the seminar Food & Packaging – Challenges in Preventing Food Loss and Optimizing Packaging was held as a part of it, where reports were given by Latvian specialists in anticipation of September 29th, IDAFLW – International Day of Awareness of Food Loss and Waste. The opinion of the packaging industry on this issue was presented by Iveta Krauja from the Packaging Association.
Now Latvia Star – the national packaging stars are known, or rather the winners of recognitions and awards are named. On November 22, at the Smart Technologies Department of the University of Life Sciences and Technologies (Jelgava city), the Packaging Association of Latvian together with its supporters announced the results of the national competition and awarded the winners. And already now the winner of the Grand Prix – the Latvian State Institute of Wood Chemistry is ready to participate in the WPO competition WorldStar for Packaging next year. It should be noted that the competition work of the Latvian State Institute of Wood Chemistry received 10 recognitions and awards – including from the Ministry of Environmental Protection and Regional Development of Latvia.
The annual competition organized by the Packaging Association of Latvia (since 1996) for the best packaging is a multi-level competition in which submitted works are evaluated by consumers – in person at the Riga Food exhibition and remotely, using online options through www.packaging.lv – the Association’s web page. A jury of 10 experts also evaluates each submitted work according to 11 criteria from the scale of 1 to 10. The contestants’ works are also evaluated by representatives of 9-10 supporting organizations, choosing the recipients of their awards. After the competition, participants will receive written comments and suggestions from the expert jury for further improvements.
It should be noted that a total of 31 works from 17 participants took part in the 2023 national packaging competition, incl. also two works from Polish and Ukrainian companies each that were invited to participate in LV competition.
