The beverage packaging industry in North America is expected to reach $26.3bn in 2015, with plastic bottles leading the way in popularity, according to a report from PMMI.
Beverage Packaging — An Industry Assessment, scheduled for release next month by PMMI (the association for packaging and processing technologies), notes that plastic continues to be the most widely used bottling material, accounting for over 40% of the market; and bottles, with approximately 55% of the market, are the most popular packaging format for beverages.
Although they suffered from a drop in soft drink sales, aluminium cans are picking up steam as other beverage categories (such as energy drinks and microbrews) are more than making up for the lost volume. Flexible pouches have experienced the slowest growth, but many respondents still anticipate increased adoption of flexible beverage packaging. Key to that, the report says, would be products geared to consumers accustomed to beverages (such as juice) in pouches.
Regardless of format, nearly all the interviews conducted for the study identified packaging as the primary means for communicating brand values to consumers.
The study also addresses key trends such as packaging size and dimension ratios, openings that offer a finer drinking experience, ‘resealability’ for portion control, different pack sizes to meet specific market demands, and colours and graphics to cut through the clutter on store shelves.
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