Pact Group has been named one of Australasia’s Most Innovative Companies for the fifth consecutive year.

The Australian Financial Review’s (AFR) Most Innovative Companies list is now in its sixth year and is judged and compiled by innovation consultancy Inventium. This year the awards attracted more than 1000 nominations from Australia and New Zealand. Pact has thundered up the list over the past few years placing 49th in 2013, 45th in 2014, 38th in 2015, 23rd in 2016 and 15th in 2017.

The awards measure Innovation as “change that adds value”. The assessment process organisations must go through consists of three parts. First, entrants must describe two innovations they have implemented in the past 12 months. Second, entrants must answer several open-ended questions about how they have integrated and embedded innovation into their organisation. Finally, organisations receive Inventium’s Innovation Maturity Index, an online survey completed by a representative sample of employees to assess performance on a range of innovation drivers.

Pact’s first 2017 nomination was from our Materials Handling division that developed a bespoke RFID enabled Intellicrate® and pooling process. This initiative has enabled Australia’s largest retailer to have the most innovative supply chain solution in Australia for fresh produce and the first time in the Southern hemisphere that RFID technology has been utilised in crate pooling. Over the past 12 months, more than four million Intellicrates® embedded with RFID tags have been supplied to fresh produce growers from four world class automated wash facilities commissioned in 12 months. New sanitisation standards and centrifugal drying equipment deliver dryer, more hygienic crates than previous industry standards meeting HACCP requirements.

Pact’s other nomination was from our Contract Manufacturing division for developing an odourless and invisible Outdoor Fly and Mosquito Shield that keeps working for six hours after spraying. The product is sprayed onto a ground surface and emanates at a controlled rate for at least 6 hours, protecting an area of 25m2 and killing bugs for up to 6 hours. This offers an alternative to directly spraying onto skin or devices that spray into the air every 30 seconds that can contaminate food and beverage. No other aerosols continue to work post spraying. This innovation has created a new segment in the category, grown sales and offered export opportunities to China, NZ and Fiji which is a great opportunity for local Australian manufacturing.

To view the complete 2017 AFR Most Innovative Companies List, click here