VIDEO | Student Design Challenge Winners Explain the Advantages of Paperboard

On November 6, the Paperboard Packaging Alliance (PPA) announced the winners of its 2025 Student Design Challenge.

Prior to the announcement, Packaging Strategies had the honor of interviewing the three finalist teams in the challenge, which involved creating sustainable, recyclable packaging for a line of pet care products — PPA Pets.

The results of the challenge were as follows:

1st Place: Rochester Institute of Technology (RIT): Protection Prevention & Awareness for Pets
2nd Place: California Polytechnic State University: PAWSH
3rd Place: California Polytechnic State University: Teef Story

The PAWSH team also took home the People’s Choice Award.

Student design teams from California Polytechnic State University and the Rochester Institute of Technology showcase their awards at the 2025 Paperboard Packaging Council’s Fall Meeting & Leadership Conference in Vancouver, Canada. *Image courtesy of Paperboard Packaging Alliance*

Dante Verna, a member of the RIT team, provided some insights as to exactly how challenging this year’s challenge was.

“These DNA kits that we were developing had to be a representation of the brand on the shelf. It had to keep its contents completely secure and had to serve as a way for a consumer to take this product home with them, take samples, and then send that back to the labs for testing,” Verna explained, adding, “This all had to be contained within one unit, wasting as little material as possible.”

Despite the daunting challenge, Amy Brumlik, another member of the RIT team, said the team really appreciated the hand they were dealt as far as the packaging medium. Brumlik said that, with paperboard, “If you can dream it, you can achieve it. It’s just deciding how to make that happen.”

Sophia Levin of the PAWSH team offered her perspective: “This experience definitely taught us about how we can prioritize consumer use while rethinking convenience through a sustainability lens. A lot of the project focused on thinking about — design-wise — how to make sure that everything was very readable and able to be intuitively used when going through the DNA test kit steps.”

Dominic Corrente, also of the PAWSH team, noted that eliminating plastics was a key objective but not the only goal.

“For example, making a tamper-resistant package, we ended up adding the perforated tear strip, which then led us into the direction of having our package open in a book style, which presents the process really clearly to the user,” Corrente said.

Natalie Cheung of Teef Story explained some of the factors that influenced her team’s ultimate packaging solution. Ease-of-use on the part of the consumer was a major consideration.

“We did a lot of competitor analysis and research. We saw a lot of pain points that consumers were leaving reviews about, so we really wanted to target those pain points that we were seeing,” Cheung said.

Maya Lojo, also of the Teef Story team, added: “With our product, we specifically made sure that it’s also multi-use, multi-purpose, and functional — where you could add that photo of either your dog or whatever happy memories that you have with your pet — and it could be on your bookshelf as well.”

To learn more about how this year’s three finalist teams tackled PPA’s 2025 Student Design Challenge, check out the full video interview above.

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Brad Addington is Chief Editor of Packaging Strategies and Flexible Packaging. He has more than 25 years of B2B publishing experience following the fresh produce industry, foodservice, retail, petroleum refining, petrochemicals, renewable fuels, and sustainability. He and his family live in Spokane, Washington, and enjoy participating in regional triathlons and marathons. Brad majored in Journalism and Latin American Studies at the University of Kansas.