Novolex, a leading food, beverage, and specialty packaging manufacturer, won the Innovation, M&A, and Environmental awards in the 2025 Packaging Gateway Excellence Awards for updating entrenched formats, reducing adoption friction, broadening material and SKU coverage through a major combination, and commercializing alternatives to challenging substrates—all while maintaining runnability, performance, and cost discipline for brand owners.
The company won the Innovation award in Paperboard Pourables for modernizing a legacy dry-goods format with a consumer-friendly, recyclable design. It earned the M&A award for Strategic Consolidation by combining complementary portfolios and capabilities to expand scale and speed to market. Novolex received the Environmental award in Fiber-Based Packaging for advancing compostable butter wraps without intentionally added fluorinated chemicals that preserve production performance. It also won the Environmental award in Circular Rigid Plastics for commercializing recyclable, reduced-density polypropylene (PP) trays as a practical alternative to polystyrene (PS) foam.
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Paperboard pourables: Bagless SmartPour improves dry goods packaging
SmartPour addresses a familiar pain point in dry-goods packaging: bag-in-box formats that spill, tear, and underperform in e-commerce. By removing the inner plastic bag and integrating an easy-to-open, tamper-evident, resealable closure, the design streamlines consumer use—fold, open, pour, close—without workarounds or secondary containers. The barrier board maintains product freshness for up to a year, with options for longer shelf life, and does so without aluminium, which is a meaningful material simplification for dry applications.
A key reason for recognition was the practical integration pathway. The filling equipment is designed as a plug-and-play replacement for current form-fill-seal lines and works with existing dry dosing scales, reducing downtime and changeover risk. This retrofit approach lowers conversion friction, enabling brand owners to test and scale across SKUs rather than commit to a wholesale line rebuild.
SmartPour also delivers logistics gains. The rigid, non-slumping form factor resists bulging, holds its shape in the supply chain, and maintains shelf presence. That sturdiness translates into higher pallet density and better e-commerce survivability, with fewer damages and returns. While the brochure quantifies a 58% pallet efficiency gain for a 17oz pack versus a comparable bag-in-box (TOPS Software calculation), the broader point is operational: more units per load and cleaner presentation on arrival.
Recyclability is built in. SmartPour has been pre-qualified as “Widely Recyclable” by How2Recycle, and the one-step curbside design avoids consumer disassembly where accepted—critical for credible on-pack claims and for reducing confusion at end of life. The platform’s breadth—six sizes, two footprints, three heights—signals readiness for category rollout across cereals, crackers, snacks, baking ingredients, pet foods, and powders, including non-food categories like detergents. Collectively, those attributes explain why the entry stood out as a considered redesign of a legacy format rather than a single-feature tweak.
Strategic consolidation: Novolex–Pactiv Evergreen combination expands scale and speed
The approximately $6.7 billion combination of Novolex and Pactiv Evergreen created one of the largest food, beverage, and specialty packaging manufacturers in North America. The combined organization offers more than 250 brands and 39,000 SKUs across paper, resin, molded fiber, and aluminum. For enterprise procurement teams that manage complex bill-of-materials and multi-substrate portfolios, this reduces the number of suppliers needed to support programs across quick-serve, retail perimeter, center store, and institutional channels.
Pactiv Evergreen’s long history in gable-top cartons and filling equipment pairs with Novolex’s depth in rigid and flexible formats. That alignment matters because many platform innovations—such as SmartPour—depend on coordination between the pack, the closure, and the machine. With machinery, materials science, and converting capabilities co-located organizationally, the company is positioned to shorten development loops and accelerate commercialization.
With a footprint of 100+ facilities across the U.S., Canada, Mexico, and Europe this provides regional redundancy, supports shorter lead times, and can mitigate disruptions. The integration approach has been formalized with continuity planning to protect service levels while these two highly regarded businesses are brought together. Internally, organizing around four end markets including Quick Service Restaurants, Food/Grocery/Retail, Distribution, and International/Industrial/Beverage, clarifies accountability and creates natural pathways for cross-sell across product families.
Early signals—broader choice for buyers, a tighter link between equipment and packaging platforms, and a larger geographic reach—support the case that this was a disciplined strategic consolidation.
Fiber-based packaging: BPI-certified, PFAS-free butter wraps with production-ready performance
The Environmental award for fiber-based packaging recognizes Novolex’s work on compostable butter wraps that address a conservative category with precise performance needs. The wraps use renewable paper bases and a proprietary wax blend to deliver grease resistance and barrier protection against water and oxygen, without intentionally added fluorinated chemicals. BPI certification confirms commercial compostability, simplifying claims for dairies navigating evolving retail and regulatory expectations around PFAS.
Crucially, the wraps retain mechanics that production teams and consumers rely on. Dead-fold keeps the wrap tight around sticks without creep, and easy-open behavior avoids tearing or residue transfer. Those attributes reduce the risk of line slowdowns or rework, which often derail sustainable material switches. The platform supports mainstream formats—Elgin (Eastern) and Western—and offers gloss (TerreGloss) or matte (Terrecote) finishes with stock or custom prints, easing brand transitions without tooling overhauls.
By shifting from fossil-heavy structures (such as certain film or foil-paired constructions) toward fiber-based inputs at scale, the solution improves material profiles while remaining compatible with established converting and packing operations. The panel viewed the combination of third-party compostability credentials, PFAS-free formulation (no intentionally added fluorinated chemicals), and preserved line efficiency as the practical balance required for adoption in high-throughput dairy plants.
Circular rigid plastics: Recyclable RDPP trays as a PS foam alternative
Novolex’s reduced-density polypropylene (RDPP) trays for proteins and school meal programs offer a viable, commercial alternative to expanded polystyrene foam trays. The process uses an inert gas as a blowing agent rather than hydrocarbons or hydrofluorocarbons (HFCs), eliminating volatile organic compound (VOC) emissions during manufacturing and after use. This is a material change with direct environmental benefits at plant scale, given that traditional PS foam manufacturing relies on hydrocarbon blowing agents that can emit VOCs.
The trays have been recognized under the Association of Plastic Recyclers’ Design for Recyclability program, indicating compatibility with established sortation and reprocessing guidance for PP. That recognition, combined with access to PP recycling in many US communities, provides a clearer end-of-life pathway than PS foam, which faces limited recycling and increasing disposal restrictions across municipalities and states.
From a performance standpoint, RDPP achieves weight reduction without sacrificing function, maintaining stiffness and tray integrity in automated packing and distribution. The platform has moved beyond lab trials: the company reports multiple commercial lines in operation, validated customer runs, and applications spanning protein processors and schools. Cost competitiveness is another advantage, which is critical for sustained conversion in price-sensitive categories.
For buyers under mandates to transition away from PS—particularly in public institutions and large retail programs—the availability of a drop-in PP alternative that fits existing automation and meets recyclability guidance lowers the barrier to change. This combination of environmental gains (no hydrocarbon blowing agents, lower weight, PP circularity potential) and operational fit explains why Novolex won the Environmental award.
“These awards reflect what our teams have achieved by uniting our capabilities across Novolex. By integrating our technologies, materials, and expertise, we’re moving ideas from concept to commercialization faster and delivering proven solutions for our customers. I’m proud of our teams as we continue to expand choice, innovation, and sustainability to meet the diverse needs of our customers and the millions of consumers they serve each day.”
– Adrianne Tipton, Chief Innovation & Sustainability Officer
Company Profile
Novolex is a leading manufacturer of food, beverage, and specialty packaging that supports multiple industries, including foodservice, restaurant delivery and carryout, food processing, grocery and retail, and industrial sectors. Our innovative product portfolio is designed to meet the diverse needs of businesses worldwide and the millions of customers they serve. Through continuous investment in research and development, we are committed to engineering more sustainable choices for the future. Our extensive manufacturing network spans North America and Europe, including two world-class plastic film recycling centers. Discover more about Novolex, our 20,000+ family members and our commitment to innovation and sustainability at www.novolex.com.
Links
Website: https://novolex.com/
