Alcoa Packaging Receives DuPont Silver Award for its Barilla Restaurant Sauce Creations(TM) Shrink Sleeve Packaging.

RICHMOND, Va. -- Alcoa Packaging, a business of Alcoa Inc., recently received a DuPont Silver Award for the Barilla Restaurant Creations(TM) Pasta Sauces dual-stacked jar package. The Barilla two jar bundling application uses an Alcoa 8 color reverse printed 50 micron PETG shrink sleeve. This new, revolutionary way to provide restaurant-quality pasta sauces for home use features a unique hourglass-shaped "dual jar" that contains not one, but two sauces, each prepared separately to allow their fresh ingredients to maintain their integrity, quality and flavor.

With the moving of the production to the U.S., Barilla came to Alcoa Packaging, a leading shrink sleeve manufacturer, for new labels. Alcoa improved the label graphics for more shelf impact through smooth transitioning vignettes and increased the sharpness of the pasta visual. Alcoa also developed an "anti-wet" overcoat to virtually eliminate the appearance of air bubbles that could become trapped between the label and the glass and be visible within the clear portion of the label. PETG film was chosen because of the severe differences in shrink diameter down the length of the product profile. The label conforms tightly to the hour-glass shape, while maintaining visual accuracy. The jar-on-jar bundling creates a large impact on the store shelf by increasing the package size and label area for visual impact. This stacked bundling method also provides a unique way to co-market two or more distinct items within existing allotted shelf space while increasing visibility by increasing the height of the entire product offering, creating a vertical billboard effect.

The DuPont Awards for innovation in food processing and packaging is an international industry competition that recognizes industry innovation that uses plastic packaging materials in food and non-food categories. Entries are evaluated on the following criteria: innovation, breadth of application, impact on industry or consumer, marketing innovation of the packaged product, and impact of the packaging on consumer or industry buying decision.

This is the second award that Alcoa Packaging has received for the Barilla Restaurant Creations packaging. It also achieved a Gold Award for Packaging Achievement from the Flexible Packaging Association at the organization's annual meeting in March 2006.

About Alcoa Packaging

Alcoa Packaging, based in Richmond, Virginia, manufactures a variety of packaging materials including extrusion and adhesive laminated pouch materials, overwraps and linerstock, blister lidding foil, thermoformed trays, cable wrap, plastic shrink sleeve body labels, shrink film and laminated foil. These packaging materials serve the world's leading consumer products manufacturers within the pharmaceutical, medical, food & beverage, and industrial markets.

About Alcoa

Alcoa (NYSE:AA) is the world's leading producer of primary aluminum, fabricated aluminum and alumina, and is active in all major aspects of the industry. Alcoa serves the aerospace, automotive, packaging, building and construction, commercial transportation and industrial markets, bringing design, engineering, production and other capabilities of Alcoa's businesses as a single solution to customers. In addition to aluminum products and components, Alcoa also markets consumer brands including Reynolds Wrap(R) aluminum foil, Alcoa(R) wheels, and Baco(R) household wraps. Among its other businesses are vinyl siding, closures, precision castings, and electrical distribution systems for cars and trucks. The company has 129,000 employees in 42 countries and has been named one of the top three most sustainable corporations in the world at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland.