Pizzeta has won Silver at Pentawards 2026 in London. The artisan pizza base, for which BroHouse created the naming, visual identity and packaging, took the award in category B.06 Ready-to-eat dishes and fast food. The ceremony was held on 16 October 2026 at Magazine London.
Let’s be direct: a trophy doesn’t sell pizza. But packaging that breaks the mold, recognized by an international jury, says something about how you work. This is our third award at Pentawards, the reference competition for packaging design, and our first at Silver level. It’s also Pizzeta’s second Silver this year, after Dieline Awards 2026 in New York.
In this article you’ll see what a Pentawards win means, why packaging with no slice and no flame convinced two juries on two continents, and what we learned on the road from our first Bronze in 2020 to this Silver. At the end you’ll find practical answers if you’re thinking about an award-winning packaging design of your own.
Why a Pentawards 2026 award matters?
A competition with 20 years of history
Pentawards is an international competition dedicated exclusively to packaging design, founded in 2007 in Brussels. The 2026 edition was an anniversary one: the 20th anniversary gala at Magazine London brought together more than 500 designers, brand owners and agencies.
Projects are judged by an international jury, and trophies range from Bronze to Diamond. A Silver isn’t earned through sympathy or a promotion budget. It’s earned because a package, compared with thousands of others from around the world, holds up.
🏆 Three Pentawards in six years
Our first international award came in 2020, with a Bronze for the SanoVita VegieLife packaging. That’s when we stepped into the global packaging competitions and learned how high the bar really sits.
In 2022, a second Bronze confirmed it wasn’t a fluke, this time for Crida Pharm packaging in the veterinary supplements space. The 2026 Silver for Pizzeta is the highest level the agency has reached at Pentawards. We didn’t get there overnight. We built it project by project, with clients who trusted the process.
What award-winning packaging design looks like on a shelf full of clichés
No slice, no flame, no chef with a mustache
Walk into any store and look at the pizza shelf. Red, melted cheese on a slice, flames, sometimes a smiling chef with a mustache. The shelf has looked the same for decades, and shoppers walk past it without seeing anything.
When everyone shouts the same thing, the one who stays quiet, smartly, gets heard. Pizzeta dropped the clichés of the category. We didn’t put a slice on the box. We put an idea there, and the idea had to say Italy without drawing Italy.
A hand that speaks Italian
On a blue background, minimalist illustrations capture the gestures Italians use to speak without words. Italians don’t tell stories only with their voices. They tell them with their hands, and anyone who has watched a conversation at a table in Naples recognizes that language instantly.
That’s the difference between packaging that illustrates a product and packaging that builds a brand. The blue breaks the category, the gestures give personality, and the simplicity lets the product breathe. The same project was also featured in Favourite Design 2025, which tells us the direction carries weight.
Naming, identity and packaging in one voice
We worked on Pizzeta from the name to the box. When the same team shapes the name, the logo and the packaging, all three say the same thing in the same tone. The brand stops explaining itself. It gets recognized.
Two juries, two Silvers, one package
🏆 Dieline Awards in New York, Pentawards in London
Dieline Awards and Pentawards have different juries and take place on different continents. Pizzeta’s first Silver came at Dieline Awards 2026 in New York. The second came in London at Pentawards, in front of different people.
What it means when two juries reach the same conclusion
One award can be the taste of one jury on a good day. Two awards, at two independent competitions, in the same year, mean something else: the solution doesn’t depend on a single person’s preference. It rests on clarity, courage and execution.
It’s also our answer when someone tells us design is subjective. Good design can be checked outside the team that made it. And when the check comes from the most demanding juries in the field, you’re looking at something solid.
A client who had the courage to say yes
Thank you, Cristian Tănasă, General Manager of Pizzeta
Here’s a plain truth of the industry: award-winning packaging starts with a client who accepts a risk. Cristian Tănasă, General Manager of Pizzeta, had the courage to approve a direction that looks like nothing else on the shelf. Instead of asking for “one more slice, so people get it” he trusted our process.
He describes the collaboration this way: “Professionalism, creativity and attention to detail, exactly what we wanted.” The packaging, he says, reflects the quality of the product and the market positioning they were after. For us, that’s the best review there is, because it comes from the person who lives with the result every day.
The whole process, from brief to final box, is described in the Pizzeta case study.
“The pizza shelf has looked the same for decades: red, slices, flames. We put only one hand on the box, a hand that speaks Italian. Two juries, on two continents, understood it without translation.” Horia Oane, co-founder of BroHouse
BroHouse’s sixth international award
The track record so far
BroHouse’s track record now includes six international awards. They are Bronze at Pentawards 2020 for SanoVita, Bronze at Pentawards 2022 for Crida Pharm, and Gold at Transform Awards Europe 2025 for Blue. Two Silvers at Dieline Awards 2026 followed, for Pizzeta and Spumos, and now Silver at Pentawards 2026 for Pizzeta.
These are awards for different categories and types of projects: food, household products, supplements and mobility. That matters more to us than the count. We don’t have a formula we repeat. We have a method that gets us to the right solution for each brand. You’ll find the full list of BroHouse international awards on our site, and the winning projects are in the BroHouse portfolio.
What a brand can take from award-winning packaging?
Not everyone needs a trophy. Everyone needs packaging that works. From the Pizzeta story, three lessons apply to any brand that sells on a shelf.
Start with the category, not the product
Before you draw anything, look at how your category looks. If every product on the shelf uses the same colors, the same images and the same promises, you’ve found the open space. Packaging branding starts with observing what everyone else does, so you can do something else.
Subtract until the idea is left
Every element on a package has to earn its place. An illustration, a color, a word. If you remove it and the message stays the same, it wasn’t needed. Pizzeta has no extra slice and no extra flame. It has one clear idea, repeated consistently.
Judge packaging on the shelf, not on a screen
A package is seen from a meter away, in a second, among dozens of other products. On a laptop screen, everything looks good. Ask your agency to show the design in a real context, next to competing products, and ask what you see first.
How we approach packaging design?
How we approach packaging design?Every packaging project starts with strategy, not style. We look at the category, the shopper and the positioning the brand wants to own. Only then do we move to concept, illustration, typography and color.
And when we can, we work across the whole chain: naming, visual identity, packaging. The result is a coherent brand, not a collection of nice pieces. If you want to see what a full process looks like, start with the Pizzeta case study.
We don’t promise trophies. We promise rigorous work, stated plainly, with a result you can defend in front of any jury, any retailer and, above all, any shopper.
How to prepare packaging for a design competition
If you’re thinking about entering your packaging into a competition like Pentawards, a few things deserve clarity from the start. The award isn’t won at submission. It’s won in the decisions made months earlier.
Choose the project that has an idea, not only good finishes
Juries see thousands of well-executed packages. What stays in memory is the idea. Before you enter anything, ask yourself what sentence the packaging says. If you can’t put it into one line, it’s probably not yet a competition project.
Document the process, not only the result
Award-winning packaging comes with a story: what the category looked like, what was avoided, why a riskier direction was chosen. Keep the sketches, the rejected options and the reasons. They’re the material from which a credible entry is written and, later, a good case study.
Bring the client along
Without a client who understands the direction, packaging gets diluted along the way. With a client who backs it, it reaches the shelf almost unchanged. We say this on every project: trust is built with arguments, not promises, and the awards come after.
What stays after the trophy?
Three things remain from the Pizzeta story. First: good packaging says little and is understood at once. Second: two independent juries on two continents don’t reach the same conclusion by chance. Third: without a courageous client, the best brief stays on paper.
On brohouse.com you’ll find our projects and how we work. If you’re ready for packaging that looks like nothing else on your shelf, write to us and let’s talk about your brand.