The archive · Design & Visual · Product decision · 2023–2024
One Good Thing's wrapper-free bars, coated in edible beeswax, win Pentawards 2024 Diamond
OGT makes the world's first wrapper-free protein bar: an edible beeswax film and rice-paper label replace packaging — nothing to throw away.
One Good Thing
What it had to solve
OGT wanted a nutritious fruit and protein bar with zero packaging waste — not a recyclable wrapper, no wrapper at all — while still keeping the bar fresh and readable as a branded product.
How it works
One Good Thing (OGT) started when its founder, on a countryside cycle ride, was shocked by the amount of litter spoiling the landscape. Instead of designing a greener wrapper, he set the brief of no wrapper at all: a completely edible, 100% natural replacement for plastic or paper packaging, developed with London agency This Way Up.
The result is a fruit and protein bar covered in a thin edible film made from a beeswax-based coating that dries around the bar, protecting it like a wrapper while staying chewable and fully edible. A small rice-paper label printed with 100% natural, food-safe ink carries the bold one-colour logo and flavour descriptor; with no wrapper to decorate, every brand element had to earn a place on the label.
The idea reframed packaging as part of the product experience: OGT's CEO said consumers should be able to eat the bar like an apple — give it a quick rinse and enjoy. The packaging design won Pentawards' 2024 Diamond, Best of Show, the first Sustainable Design entry to take the top prize.
Why it lands
- The brief deleted the wrapper instead of making it recyclable, forcing a genuinely new material answer
- The edible beeswax film and rice-paper label turn disposal into consumption — there is literally nothing to throw away
- The one-colour logo on a tiny edible label shows brand design working inside a hard constraint
- The 'eat it like an apple' framing made a sustainability trade-off feel like a better product experience
What it did
Pentawards gave it the 2024 Diamond, Best of Show, as its first Sustainable Design winner; the studio reports +1.5M TikTok views by December 2023 and 100% production capacity within six months of launch.
What you can take
The strongest sustainability move is to delete the package rather than make it greener: the constraint 'no wrapper' forced the invention, and the brand simply moved onto an edible label.
Since then
Pentawards awarded the project its 2024 Diamond — Best of Show, calling it the first Sustainable Design winner in the award's history; the studio also notes the bars reached 100% of production capacity within six months of launch, with +1.5 million TikTok views by December 2023. Industry trend reports, including China Food News' review of Pentawards' 2024–2025 trends, cited 'leaving no trace of the product' as a direction packaging was heading.
Sources
- Edible packaging wins Pentawards 2024. 39 awards also for Italy
- 打破常规，食品包装绿色环保会“讲故事” (Breaking convention: green food packaging tells a story)
- One Good Thing — case study
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