Ready to sublimate your projects and find new ideas for sustainable development for your social commitment?
Take part in France's only collective intelligence event with your packaging peers!
An experience boosted by the youth of dozens of students from our businesses.
Let's explore new horizons together!
Let's build the future of our industry: innovative, responsible and inspiring!
Major sponsor
Léko is a fully committed player in the circular economy serving the household packaging and graphic paper industry in France and internationally.
A unique event in France for our packaging industry
What is the Packathon™?
Inspired by the hackathon format, the Packathon™ transposes this collaborative agility to the heart of industrial issues:
- Efficiency of process and packaging machines
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Sustainable packaging
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Circularity, vacuum reduction, energy efficiency
In line with the 3R ambition of our businesses:
Reduce - Reuse - Recycle
The Packathon™ is a biennial event devised by GEPPIA, unique in France for our major sector, the packaging, machinery and associated systems industry.
Multi-disciplinary teams work in immersion on concrete challenges, proposed by the companies themselves, with the support of coach-facilitators specialized in innovation, creativity and agile methods.
An event supported by
A 2025 edition under the banner of sustainability and territory
Where & when?
December 4 and 5, 2025
Dole University Center (Jura)
Linked to regional ecosystems and technical training courses, this campus offers a framework conducive to collaborative projects involving industry, the environment and young people.
A qualified, committed audience
Students
Between 50 and 100 students from engineering and technical schools, with varied and complementary profiles.
French manufacturers & their partners
Some twenty French machine builders and their technology partners, suppliers and active members of GEPPIA.
Packaging manufacturers
Packaging manufacturers committed to eco-design and performance.
End users
End-users, marketers or groups involved in the packaging process.
They have already given their approval, even before registration opens...
How to take part in the Packathon™
Which profile and for what?
Each participating company can register a single representative, selected according to his or her skills and the nature of the challenges proposed.
It doesn't necessarily have to be a technical profile: depending on the themes addressed, the ideal profile can come from R&D, the design office, but also marketing/commercial, CSR and even management, as was already the case in 2021 and 2023.
There's no obligation to submit a challenge to the Packathon teams in order to take part! Everyone's topics and ideas will feed your own reflections... with or without a shared challenge. That's the richness of serendipity and collective intelligence!
The topics covered will concern packaging in general (materials, shape, functionality) and the associated mechanical systems and production processes.
Accept to play the game, whatever the challenge proposed to your team, and let yourself be “moved” to derive maximum benefit.
“During a packathon, the more you give, the more you get!”
How much does it cost?
To take part, you'll need to pay a registration fee to cover part of the logistics and catering costs.
A story in progress
They lived it, they talk about it
Ludivine BOUDET, Engineering student, Institut Agro Dijon (food pack option)
Benjamin COPINET, Student engineer, ESI Reims
Sébastien NICOULES, R&D Manager, CDA FRANCE
Stéphanie LEPEIGNEUL, Business Engineer, SKF
Cédric RENARD, Chief Sales Marketing Officer, SeracBackground to the Packathon™
Crisis = need
During Covid-19, French industrial activity was severely tested. The desire to co-create and get together to revitalize the sector was a source of motivation for many companies in the GEPPIA group.
2020
June 30, 2021
The birth of the project
On June 30, 2021, on the principle of hackathons well known in the digital world, an audacious bet was taken up for the 1st time in France in packaging: that collaborative mode can be boosted in every company and in a very limited space of time... thanks to the industry spirit of a group such as GEPPIA with
2 partner schools: ESI Reims and IA Dijon.
Confirmation of interest
After a successful first edition, a second was organized on July 5, 2023, on a biennial basis.
On D-Day, agile co-creativity workshops were held, bringing together 20 GEPPIA member professionals and 10 packaging and foodpack engineering students, under the guidance of expert ideation facilitators, around the challenges selected upstream.
July 5, 2023
October 2023
School-business partnership
In October 2023, GEPPIA, the French process, packaging and equipment manufacturers' association, signed a partnership agreement with the Institut Agro Dijon. Under the terms of this agreement, GEPPIA will bring its network to bear wherever possible, for example, through the participation of professionals invited by the teaching staff.
Deep involvement
In November 2024, GEPPIA continues its journey with the Institut Agro Dijon by becoming a patron of the 3R Packaging Chair: reduce, recycle, reuse. A logical continuation of its involvement in meeting societal, environmental and health safety challenges, and contributing to accelerating the transition to more sustainable food packaging.
November 2024
December 4 and 5, 2025
Turning a corner!
The aim for edition #3 of the Packathon™ on December 4 and 5, 2025 in Dole, and those for years to come, is to become the French industry's must-attend event for working on your machine and/or packaging pairing themes.
Two days of intense reflection and close collaboration with several dozen students from technical and engineering schools, machine builders, packaging manufacturers and marketers!