The countdown to HostMilano 2023, to be held at fieramilano Rho from 13 to 17 October, has begun. And parallel to this, the excitement is also mounting for Smart Label – Host Innovation Award: the distinction made by Fiera Milano with POLI.design and sponsored by ADI – Italy’s Industrial Design Association that has increasingly become an opportunity to look ahead to future innovations in Ho.Re.Ca. and Retail.

We spoke to one of the judges, Markus Orthey, design director of DeLonghi Braun Household. “In the last three years we have seen some unprecedented changes. There have been various world-changing events in the past, such as 9/11, and reunification here in Germany. But never have there been so many in such a short time. This has led to a major evolution, especially among the new generations: we see this in our interactions with young people at POLI.design. There is a greater sense of responsibility and the demand for sustainability has become much more concrete.”

This, says Orthey, also reflects on people’s expectations: “There is no longer any room for innovation as an end unto itself. Both consumers and business clients expect intuitive, easy-to-use solutions that respond to specific problems of use and do more with fewer resources, especially with less energy and less water.”

How should we be responding to this across-the-board challenge? “We have to approach it from a life cycle point of view,” the design director goes on, “optimising resources at all stages in a product’s life: all the way from the drawing board, with eco-design, to recycling – or better still re-use – at the end of its life. At this moment in time there is a major focus on materials, for example composite plastics, which are commonly found in kitchen items: a hard material for the outer shell and a soft material for the handle. These are two different materials and the fact that they are fixed together like this means they cannot be recycled. In future we will have to invent new ways of taking them apart and recycling the two materials separately, or else develop hard and soft versions of the same material. This is an excellent example of how a demand for sustainability can be turned into a technological challenge that can potentially have a positive impact also in other sectors.”

And while the out-of-home sector anticipates the trends we then find in our everyday lives, events like Smart Label are essential for us to understand the direction we are heading in. “Unlike the long-term mega trends, it has become very difficult to pick up on short- and medium-term trends in the last three years. That is why it is more important than ever to ‘put out feelers’, so to speak. And this is indeed what Smart Label is all about for me: a unique opportunity to set our antennae towards the future of design. This is why we will be making every effort to single out those products and solutions that bring about a real change.”

The process of evaluating the entries has just begun. The winners will be announced at Host 2023.