When it comes to food packaging, sustainability and innovation are paramount — as they are in nearly every other packaging market. In its latest market research report, “Trends & Advances in Food Packaging,” PMMI examines what’s driving the drivers, and how all those factors are playing out for packaging and processing machinery manufacturers, components suppliers, and materials suppliers

“Economic pressures are forcing cost reductions, consumers are demanding convenience, and retailers are insisting on new products and sustainable packages,” said Paula Feldman, director of research & surveys, PMMI. “With these competing — but interconnected — concerns, the food packaging marketplace is becoming even more competitive and dynamic as it attempts to meet a range of needs to address these important factors.”

Report highlights include:

• Four major influences are affecting retail packaging: the rise in sustainable and innovative packaging, the development of new food products, trends towards Retail Ready Packaging (RRP), the longevity of the economic slump.
• Growth continues for flexible packaging: 30 percent of companies surveyed indicated they’re moving toward greater flexible packaging use; another 40 percent have reached their flexible packaging goals.
• Food manufacturers are continuing to reduce corrugate in their secondary packaging, trending instead towards thin stretch films and “shrink straps.”
• A trend toward retail-ready packaging in the food industry is leading to innovative cube utilization and unit packing dimensions and multi-pallet and shopable pallet configurations.
• Efforts to reduce transportation costs have led food manufacturers to improve pallet configurations, use automatic palletizers and increase rail transportation.
• Half of the companies who took part in the study plan to purchase equipment in the near future.

PMMI members can download the executive summary or full study report, at no charge, from at PMMI.org. The full study is available to non-members for $3,500. Contact Paula Feldman to purchase: 703.243.8555.