Discover your next big idea at PACK EXPO Las Vegas
Experience a breakthrough in packaging & processing and transform your business with solutions from 2,300 suppliers spanning all industries. Click to learn more.

Flexible packaging market is characterized by solid, long-term growth

The Flexible Packaging Association’s 2018 State of the Flexible Packaging Industry Report identifies flexibles as the second-largest packaging segment.

Flexible packaging represents approximately 19% of the total $167 billion U.S. packaging industry and is the second-largest packaging segment behind corrugated paper and just ahead of bottles and miscellaneous rigid plastics packaging.
Flexible packaging represents approximately 19% of the total $167 billion U.S. packaging industry and is the second-largest packaging segment behind corrugated paper and just ahead of bottles and miscellaneous rigid plastics packaging.

Factors such as sustainability, digital printing, and e-commerce would all seem to bode well for the future of the flexible packaging materials market. Flexibles represent approximately 19% of the total $167 billion U.S. packaging industry, according to the just-released Flexible Packaging Association’s (FPA) “2018 State of the Flexible Packaging Industry Report.”

Although FPA’s report is not a trends report, the association does report that flexibles rank as the second-largest packaging segment, behind corrugated paper but ahead of bottles and miscellaneous rigid plastics packaging.

“Flexible packaging’s solid, long-term strength, coupled with flexible packaging replacing other packaging formats, resulted in the growth of flexibles from 17% in 2000 to the current level of 19% in 2017,” notes FPA.

That steady growth is reflected in the total flexible packaging industry, which FPA estimates at $31 billion in annual sales for 2017, up from the $30.2 billion in 2016 noted in the association’s 2017 report. The $31 billion includes packaging for retail and institutional food and non-food (including medical and pharmaceutical), industrial materials, shrink and stretch films, retail shopping bags, consumer storage bags, wraps and trash bags.

2024 PACK EXPO Innovations Reports
Exclusive access: Packaging World editor-curated reports revealing PACK EXPO's most groundbreaking technologies across food, healthcare, and machinery sectors. Each report features truly innovative solutions selected from hundreds of exhibitors by our expert team. Transform your operations with just one click.
Access Now
2024 PACK EXPO Innovations Reports
Conveying Innovations Report
Editors report on distinguishing characteristics that define each new product and collected video demonstrating the equipment or materials as displayed at the show. This topical report, winnowed from nearly 300 PACK EXPO collective booth visits, represents a categorized, organized account of individual items that were selected based on whether they were deemed to be both new, and truly innovative, based on decades of combined editorial experience in experiencing and evaluating PACK EXPO products.
Take me there
Conveying Innovations Report