In the next five years, the annual growth rate of the global flexible packaging market is expected to reach 3.4%, and its scale will be 248 billion dollars (217 billion euros) by 2020. This dynamic packaging industry provides great potential for technology providers, packaging processors and brand owners.
Flexible packaging is the most economical method for packaging, preserving and distributing food, beverages, other consumables, medicine and products that need extended storage life. It can design custom barrier performance to adapt to the packaged products and their final use, while other non barrier packaging forms usually provide a non customizable general method. Soft packaging can now be made into various innovative shapes, sizes and appearances, and can be added to components, such as handles, and openings and reclosing functions, such as zippers and nozzles, heat shrinkable packages such as crosslinking films and crosslinked POF, which can be packaged according to various innovative shapes of the product.
In this article, Smithers Pira uses its latest market data to identify four key trends that are driving the soft packaging market.
1, thinning
Soft packaging uses less resources and less energy than other forms of packaging. Its packaging cost, material usage and transportation cost are not only significantly reduced, but also some properties are better than rigid packaging. The use of flexible packaging minimizes the cost of packaging and transportation between processors, packers / bottling agents, retailers and end-users. It not only takes up less space than rigid packing when it is empty packing, but also can make the packing bag directly from the coil material in the filling site, thus reducing the transportation of the preformed empty packing to the maximum limit.
An important trend in soft plastic packaging continues to be thinning because of environmental pressure and high polymer prices, which make thin film demand for customers.
Even if many traditional films are reaching the limit of this trend, plastic film thinning will continue. Because of the joint effect of environmental pressure and uncertain polymer prices, the soft packaging industry will start to promote the "pre cycle" advantage of more flexible packaging. As demand for paper and aluminum foil has reached the bottom line in many areas, it is expected that they will not decline again.
It is predicted that global consumers will consume 2010-2020 (1000 tons) of flexible packaging through products.
2. High performance film materials
Another trend for more thin-film materials is the rise and importance of high performance thin films. The development trend of food packaging film is low permeability high-performance film structure to extend shelf life and enhance flavor. This increase occurred during the transition from rigid container packaging to high quality flexible packaging. The application of non food packaging is in industry and agriculture.
The share of quality products is increasing, including products modified by modified atmosphere packaging (MAP), and also for soft packaging of baked goods. Some of these products are gluten free bread, breakfast products, such as croissants, pancakes, some baked bread, rolls, flower bread, and cakes.
The other two favorable industry trends are the increasing pressure on retailers to extend shelf life, and the change in bread and bread bread from frozen to MAP.
As a substitute for glass and metal packaging, the continuous success of soft packaging, especially the steaming and hot filling products, can be directly attributed to the substantial improvement in the barrier properties of plastic films, especially transparent plastic films.
One of the advantages of soft packaging is the ability of brand owners to "allocate" performance on the basis of product and shelf life requirements. Glass or metal packaging has a very high barrier performance, whether necessary or not. For example, it is not necessary to pack refrigerated milk in glass containers to maintain shelf life. Milk is oxidized very slowly at refrigeration temperatures, so there is no need for barrier packaging.
Another extreme example is wine, which can react quickly with oxygen even at cold storage temperatures, and is therefore suitable for glass container packaging. Soft packaging can be easily designed for two types of products to meet the needs of different levels of humidity and oxygen barrier performance, and in transparent and opaque forms. In most cases, the barrier of soft packaging for retail products is a laminated sheet consisting of several layers of plastic, so the required barrier performance level can be achieved through one or more layers (plastic).
3, consumer convenience
Because more and more consumers are living in an increasingly busy and stressful life, they do not have time to cook from scratch, instead of choosing a convenient way to eat. The new soft packaged instant meal is the first choice for making full use of current social and economic trends.
By 2020, the consumption of fresh meat, fish and poultry will increase faster than unpackaged agricultural products. The trend is due to consumer demand for more convenient solutions, and the growing dominance of large supermarkets that can provide longer shelf life packaging.
In the past ten years, the consumption of refrigerated food has increased steadily as the number of supermarkets and large markets, especially in the developing market, and the increase in consumer demand for precooked, precooked or pre cut convenience products. The growth of pre cut products and high-end series promoted the growth of MAP packaging demand. The demand for frozen food is also driven by a variety of fast food, fresh Italy pasta, seafood and meat, and a trend toward more convenient food, which are purchased by time conscious consumers.
4, biological derivatization and biodegradation
Over the past few years, many bio based plastic packaging have emerged.