Red Dot 2026 for Crocantessa: Lošinj krokant receives international recognition for packaging design
The visual identity and packaging of the Lošinj krokant product Crocantessa have won the Red Dot Award 2026 in the Packaging Design – Gifts & Souvenirs category, giving the contemporary interpretation of a traditional island confection a new international distinction. The award was presented to a project by the Rijeka-based design and marketing agency Fabula, which created the identity and packaging for the product made by Porat d.o.o. in Mali Lošinj, a town on the island of Lošinj in the northern part of the Adriatic Sea. According to the agency’s announcement and a Novi list report dated 22 July 2026, Crocantessa received the standard Red Dot distinction, which the organiser defines as confirmation of high design quality. The result is particularly important for a small local product because it demonstrates how gastronomic heritage can be presented to an international audience without abandoning the place, customs and story from which it originated.
Recognition in one of the world’s largest design competitions
The Red Dot Design Award is an international competition with a tradition spanning more than seven decades, organised in the fields of product design, design concepts, and brands and communication design. The organiser’s official website states that entries in the Brands & Communication Design discipline are evaluated by an independent international jury of approximately 30 experts. The jury considers design quality and creative achievement, and the distinctions are divided into three levels: Red Dot, Red Dot: Best of the Best and Red Dot: Grand Prix. Crocantessa received the Red Dot, a distinction awarded by the organiser to projects of high design quality, while the higher distinctions are reserved for works that stand out further through a very high or exceptional level of execution. This clarification is important because it confirms the actual status of the award without turning the distinction into a nonexistent first place.
For Fabula, the 2026 competition year ended with a 100 percent success rate. According to Novi list, the agency submitted three projects for the first time and all three received awards: the RUTA – on foot tours brand won Red Dot: Best of the Best for its complete identity, while Sonate u likeru and Lošinj krokant received Red Dot awards for packaging design. Crocantessa was classified specifically among gifts and souvenirs, which corresponds to the purpose of a product presented as an edible reminder of Lošinj. The simultaneous success of three different projects adds further weight to the recognition for the krokant, while also drawing attention to design’s ability to translate regional stories into a comprehensible visual language for markets beyond the places where they originated.
Packaging that protects and tells a story at the same time
In the case of Crocantessa, the design task was not merely aesthetic. Krokant is an exceptionally thin, hard and fragile product, so its packaging must withstand transport, handling and changes in conditions while leaving enough space for its structure to remain visible. Fabula states on its project page that it selected a drawer-system construction, reinforced to reduce the risk of breakage before the moment of serving. A cut-out on the front of the box provides a view of the contents, while the square slab is protected from moisture. In this way, the technical solution became part of the product experience: the packaging preserves it until the buyer or gift recipient deliberately breaks it in accordance with the Lošinj custom.
The visual system draws on the island’s maritime past. According to the explanation provided by the Fabula agency, dark blue was chosen as a connection to the sea, the navy and the tradition of sea captains, while gold refers to prosperity, festivity and the period of economic growth in Lošinj’s maritime history. Motifs of a sabre, a broken krokant slab and a north marker are concealed within the logo, while the message “Break it for good luck!” directly conveys the ritual associated with the confection. The packaging also features the Addio sculpture from Čikat Bay, dedicated to the women of Lošinj seafarers who saw family members off on long voyages. The packaging therefore does not function as a decorative wrapper, but as a concise interpretation of the history of the place, family celebrations and island memory.
Petar Goleš, one of the initiators of Crocantessa and a pastry chef who continues the tradition of making krokant in Mali Lošinj, stated on the occasion of the award that the objective from the outset was to create a high-quality and recognisable product and preserve the island custom from oblivion. According to his statement published alongside the news of the Red Dot award, the project was therefore entrusted to expert collaborators, from identity development to the selection of packaging materials. Goleš assessed that its acceptance among Lošinj residents and visitors, together with international distinctions, confirms that such an approach was justified. He also emphasised that the success belongs to everyone involved, summarising the collaboration with the words: “Crocantessa is our shared success.”
From a confection of captains’ families to a contemporary island product
Lošinj krokant belongs to the broader Mediterranean family of confections made from caramelised sugar and nuts, but on Lošinj it developed into a distinctive festive construction. According to information from the Tourist Board of the Town of Mali Lošinj and project documentation, it was especially prominent during the golden age of Lošinj sailing ships, from the second half of the 18th century to the end of the 19th century. Sugar and almonds were expensive ingredients at the time, so the confection was prepared for weddings, baptisms, anniversaries, ship launches and other important occasions. Thin slabs and decorative elements were joined with caramel to form multi-tiered structures, creating a visually sumptuous whole from a limited quantity of precious ingredients. Krokant was therefore much more than a dessert: it signified the prosperity of a household, the importance of the occasion and the desire to commemorate a shared moment publicly.
In its traditional form, a festive krokant can have seven tiers and decorations made from sugar paste. The climax of the celebration is not its orderly cutting, but its breaking with a sabre, after which the pieces are distributed among those gathered. The custom is interpreted as a symbolic act of invoking good luck and prosperity, and the idea that a greater number of pieces brings more luck has also been incorporated into Crocantessa’s contemporary communication. Transferring that ritual into a smaller, practical format was one of the product’s key innovations. Instead of a large construction intended for a single celebration, the customer receives a protected slab that can be carried, given as a gift and broken during a personal moment of celebration.
Crocantessa was presented to the public on 6 July 2023 at the Museum of Apoxyomenos in Mali Lošinj. The Tourist Board announced at the time that it was the first packaged product of Porat d.o.o., which had previously made krokant for family and public celebrations. The product is still handmade today, in the traditional manner and according to a family recipe at the Moby Dick pastry shop. This production method limits industrial standardisation, but at the same time preserves its artisanal character, visible irregularities and delicate structure, which form an integral part of the confection’s identity. For visitors who wish to discover the island’s gastronomic and maritime heritage, Crocantessa has become one of the products that connect taste, story and place; when planning a stay, accommodation offers in Mali Lošinj are also available.
Protected craftsmanship and the role of the women of Lošinj seafarers
In 2024, the Ministry of Culture and Media of the Republic of Croatia determined that the skill of preparing the Lošinj krokant confection, or croccante lussignan, has the status of intangible cultural heritage. According to an announcement by the Lošinj Museum reported by Radio Jadranka, the tradition is more than 150 years old and is inseparably connected with festive occasions, family customs and the identity of the island community. The protection does not apply solely to the recipe, but also to the knowledge of shaping, arranging and joining the thin elements and to the social context in which krokant is prepared and broken. This confirmed that the confection’s value is not limited to market recognition, but also encompasses the transmission of skills between generations.
A special place in this story belongs to the wives of seafarers, who maintained their families, households and local customs during their husbands’ long absences. The bronze Addio sculpture in Čikat Bay is dedicated to them and stands at the location from which women traditionally saw seafarers off on their voyages. The official tourism presentation of the sculpture states that the work is dedicated to Marija Stuparić, wife of Captain Aldebrando Petrina, and the figure holding a handkerchief has become a recognisable symbol of waiting, devotion and Lošinj’s maritime history. By incorporating the Addio motif into Crocantessa’s packaging, the role of women in preserving customs has been given a visible place in the product’s contemporary identity. This represents an important shift away from the superficial use of “old times” towards specifically identifying the people and experiences that kept the tradition alive.
The preservation of the skill also continues through education. According to information published alongside the award, Petar Goleš, in cooperation with the Lošinj Museum, conducts krokant-making workshops for hospitality school students and interested members of the public. Such workshops have practical value because they enable participants to learn how to work with hot caramel, stretch thin slabs and assemble the construction, while also conveying the historical context of the custom. Without regular teaching, the formal recognition of cultural heritage alone would not be sufficient to secure the future of this complex artisanal technique. The combination of museum interpretation, hospitality education and everyday production is therefore one of the key elements in the long-term preservation of Lošinj krokant.
A series of awards from 2023 to a world record
The Red Dot is not the first distinction Crocantessa has won since its presentation in 2023. That same year, the product received the Simply the Best award for a new souvenir in Croatia’s tourism offering, in a selection associated with the PUT business and tourism exchange. In April 2024, Crocantessa won first place in the Best Innovation on Tradition category at the international World Food Gift Challenge competition in Dubai. According to an announcement by the Kvarner Tourist Board, the distinction was awarded to a contemporary product that adapts a traditional gastronomic story to a gift format while retaining its local identity and production method. The product also carries the Lošinj Local Product and Croatian Island Product labels, with the official HOP programme of the Ministry of Regional Development and European Union Funds using the designation to encourage the production, placement and promotion of authentic and innovative island products.
The most visible moment in the recent history of krokant took place in early May 2025, during the celebration of 140 years of organised tourism on Lošinj. A krokant measuring 2.73 metres in height, comprising 14 tiers and weighing 57.5 kilograms, was made in the main square in Mali Lošinj. The Tourist Board of the Town of Mali Lošinj announced that Guinness World Records official adjudicator Paulina Sapinska confirmed the result as the tallest confection of its kind in the world. The number of tiers symbolised 14 decades of tourism tradition, and the production was led by Petar Goleš together with his colleagues from the Moby Dick pastry shop.
Data provided by the organisers demonstrate the scale of the undertaking: the structure was made from more than two thousand individual pieces, preparation and work required almost 200 hours, and final assembly outdoors lasted approximately eight hours. After the official measurement and confirmation of the record, the krokant was broken with a sabre and distributed among those gathered, bringing the global record attempt to a close with a local ritual. The event was not merely a promotional spectacle, but a public demonstration of the technical complexity of production. At the same time, it showed how heritage can be presented to a large number of people without being transformed into a static museum exhibit.
What the Red Dot changes for Crocantessa and Mali Lošinj
A design award does not change the ingredients or the traditional technique, but it can significantly increase a product’s visibility in an international environment. The Red Dot label is used on the packaging and in the communication of award-winning projects, while the winning works enter the organiser’s system of exhibitions, publications and digital archives. For Crocantessa, this means that the story of Lošinj krokant no longer appears only in a gastronomic or tourism context, but also in the professional world of branding, packaging and communication design. This gives the local producer additional proof that investment in packaging construction, typography, symbols and a clear interpretation of origin can be just as important as the quality of the product itself.
At the same time, international recognition raises the question of responsible success management. Increased demand can benefit the local economy, but handmade production and the delicate technique impose natural limits on volume. Crocantessa’s value derives precisely from its connection to Lošinj, the family recipe, the producer’s craftsmanship and a custom that is still practised. Excessive expansion without control could weaken the characteristics that made the product recognisable. Its development to date, from its museum presentation and workshops to cultural heritage status, a Guinness World Record and the Red Dot, demonstrates a different model: growth through strengthening the story, quality and knowledge, rather than separating the product from its origin.
In just three years, Crocantessa has travelled from being a new local souvenir to becoming an internationally recognised design project. Behind that journey remains an older and more important fact: Lošinj krokant continues to be made, assembled, broken and shared within the community where it originated. The Red Dot 2026 is therefore not only a recognition of the box and visual identity, but confirmation that carefully designed packaging can become a bridge between a 19th-century artisanal tradition and the contemporary global market. In the case of Crocantessa, design has not replaced heritage, but has given it stronger protection, a clearer voice and a wider reach.
Sources:
- Red Dot Design Award – official explanation of the distinction levels in the Brands & Communication Design discipline (link)
- Red Dot Design Award – official information about the international jury for Brands & Communication Design (link)
- Novi list – report on the three awards won by the Fabula agency and the distinction category for Lošinj krokant (link)
- Fabula – project documentation for the visual identity and packaging construction of Lošinj krokant (link)
- Tourist Board of the Town of Mali Lošinj – presentation of Crocantessa and information about its tradition, production and 2023 launch (link)
- Tourist Board of the Town of Mali Lošinj – official information about the Guinness World Record and the dimensions and production of the 2025 krokant (link)
- Radio Jadranka and the Lošinj Museum – announcement of the decision granting intangible cultural heritage status (link)
- Ministry of Regional Development and European Union Funds – official Crocantessa profile in the Croatian Island Product programme (link)
- Torpedo Media and the Kvarner Tourist Board – result of the 2024 World Food Gift Challenge in Dubai (link)
- Red Dot Design Award – official overview of international visibility and benefits for award-winning projects (link)
- Tourist Board of the Town of Mali Lošinj – information about the Simply the Best distinction for a new souvenir (link)
- Tourist Board of the Town of Mali Lošinj – history and significance of the Addio sculpture in Čikat Bay (link)
- Turizmoteka – original report on the Red Dot award, Petar Goleš’s statement and information about krokant-making workshops (link)