Metpack announces 2026 Innovation Award winners

The winners of the Metpack Innovation Awards 2026 have been announced.

Three companies were honoured on the second day of the trade fair (6 May) at the Talk in a Can presentation area in Hall 2 at 1:30pm. With the awards, Metpack recognises outstanding technical innovations in the international metal packaging industry. The world’s leading trade fair will continue at Messe Essen in Germany until 8 May.

A total of 26 entries from 22 exhibitors from China, France, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, Singapore, Spain, Switzerland, the United Kingdom and the United States were submitted for Bronze, Silver and Gold. An international jury of experts evaluated the innovations according to criteria such as degree of innovation, sustainability, cost reduction and quality improvement.

Chairman of the jury, Gianluca Ciccolini, summarised: “The decision was anything but easy for the jury this year. It was a truly neck-and-neck race, with many strong entries that impressively demonstrate how innovative and future-oriented the metal packaging industry is. The winning solutions are outstanding examples of the technical excellence and innovative strength of our industry.”

Gold award winner

MW LAK Solutions Srl received Gold for its UV-LED External White Basecoat for metal packaging. The innovation replaces conventionally heat-dried external white basecoat systems with a UV-LED-curable coating system. With a very high solids content, the coating cures almost instantly under LED radiation. This significantly reduces VOC emissions, energy consumption and the carbon footprint. At the same time, coating consumption and film weight are reduced, while the required floor space, maintenance effort and downtime are minimised. The technology therefore supports more efficient and sustainable external coating for metal packaging.

Silver award winner

Koenig & Bauer MetalPrint received Silver for its Closed-Loop Inline Coating Thickness Control system, the first fully automatic inline control system for metal sheet coating. The system measures the coating layer thickness directly after the coating machine in real time and transmits the data to the machine control system. Deviations from the setpoint are automatically detected and corrected by readjusting the coating gap. This keeps the target application weight stable throughout the production run, while reducing coating consumption, waste and manual intervention. The solution increases process stability, shortens make-ready and setup times, and enables more resource-efficient production – both for new machines and as an upgrade for existing MetalCoat installations.

Bronze award winner

Bronze went to Sun Chemical Group for an AI-powered colour matching and Direct-to-Can digital proofing solution developed in partnership with CMA Imaging. At the heart of the solution is an objective, serialised colour target that clearly defines the desired brand colour for metal decoration. Instead of evaluating colours subjectively over multiple rounds using physical samples, the brand, prepress partner, can maker and ink supplier work from a shared, measurable colour reference. The AI supports more precise matching of colour, opacity and film weight and enables a first-time-right approach in the proofing and approval process. As a result, colour rematching, rejected samples, sample shipments, approval delays and unnecessary ink consumption can be reduced.

Representatives from the three companies were welcomed back on stage after receiving their individual awards for a final celebratory photo and ‘selfie’ with presenter and Talk in a Can moderator, Felix Schneider.