Sheffield Hallam University students George Fowles and Jessica Walklett have developed a sustainable packaging concept for restaurant chain Pho, taking first place in Deliveroo’s 2026 Sustainable Packaging Competition.
The design was produced under an ongoing collaboration between Deliveroo, Sheffield Hallam University and Enviropak, which focuses on developing viable sustainable packaging that restaurants on Deliveroo’s platform can adopt commercially.
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Deliveroo and Pho launched the project with the university in July for the third edition of the challenge.
The brief asked students to formulate packaging for Pho, a Vietnamese restaurant group operating more than 50 sites nationwide. Work centred on Pho’s curry and rice meals.
Across a development period of just under five months, participants were tasked with creating a container capable of isolating curry sauce from rice, avoiding leaks during transit, and retaining temperature and freshness.
The resulting design, titled Terapot, earned the student pair a £1,500 ($2008) cash prize.
Terapot uses a semi-circular tub formed from fully recyclable pulp to store curry sauce, sitting directly inside a larger bowl filled with rice.
The inner tub features an ergonomically shaped outer rim built to sit flush against the outer container’s lid.
This seal secures the curry during transport, prevents spills across the rice, and preserves dish temperature.
The brief follows the competition’s previous year with bakery chain GAIL’s, which focused on designing an alternative sustainable coffee cup.
In a separate development in February, Deliveroo brought a student-designed packaging format to market, working alongside packaging specialist Biopak and Sheffield Hallam apprentices Josephine Shaw and William Shaw.
That project was made available on Deliveroo’s packaging webstore and introduced an updated locking structure to standard takeaway cartons.
