The packaging industry is taking a respite from its double-digit growth of the last two years, but that doesn’t mean a decline in business, according to a new report released at Pack Expo 2023 in Las Vegas on Sept. 11
Jorge Izquierdo, vice president, market development for PMMI, the presenting association at Pack Expo, said in his overview of the State of the Industry Report, said there were a number of packaging sectors that grew rapidly during the pandemic, which fueled overall industry growth. On the other side of the pandemic, growth is still expected to be solid.
“Industry-wide, packaging industry remains strong,” Izquierdo said. “We’re expecting growth in pharma in next two years, and there are other areas of the market where we are finding opportunities. COVID delivered significant growth for e-commerce, and direct sales are having a lot of impact.”
Coming off its two highest years of growth ever, the packaging industry expects to continue to grow at more typical rates, Izquierdo told members of the media at a Monday luncheon. “It’s not a double-digit growth year. We’re excepting between 3.5% and 4% growth,” he said. “If you look at 2020, it was complicated. We saw a slowdown in first half of the year, and then growth was sustained into 2021. We had close to 16% growth in 2021, fueled by effects of COVID and us changing our habits. We saw a slowdown just a bit to 12.4% in 2022. But that still was very robust growth, fueled a lot by industrial automation.”
Isquierdo also noted the supply chain challenges that disrupted packaging and other industries are still working themselves out in 2023, which also has impacted growth numbers.
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