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Macro Trends Impacting Consumers, Retailers, and Product Manufacturers in 2021

At the opening of the 2021 ISTA Forum TransPack and TempPack, the post-COVID state of consumer products and retail industries was the topic of discussion.

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On Tuesday, Mara Devitt, Senior Partner at retail consultancy McMillanDoolittle, addressed the ISTA Forum to talk about what leading companies are doing to prevail in 2021 and beyond.

She summed up her talk with a quote from Charles Darwin, “It's not the strongest of the species that survives, it's not the most intelligent, it's the one that's the most adaptable to change.”

Adaptability to the recent pandemic and the forced changes the industry has encountered are the basis of the key areas she discussed. She also posed the following questions for the future:

·     Does COVID usher in a new age of contactless experiences?

·      Will it raise the bar overall for food safety, sanitary standards, and safety for all of our products that are delivered to our consumers overall?

·      How can we use that as a differentiator?

·      Will this create a shift in culturally accepted norms and practices that are going to sustain into the future?

·      What are those practices and how do we adjust to those in our business?

Commitment to Customer and Employee Wellbeing

This trend means putting real measurable processes and tools in place, such as air purifiers, sanitizing any surface that can be touched, new forms of packaging, and individual purchase sizes.

Devitt said, “We believe that health-minded buying (vitamin supplements, skincare, etc.) will remain well beyond the pandemic…and if we look to China as a leading indicator, because they're a couple months ahead of us in terms of this pandemic, you can see that a full 80% said they're going to continue to pay attention to eating healthy after the pandemic. So, this is going to have a real impact on the assortment decisions that retailers are making and what they're going to include and emphasize and sell.”

The new shift to working from home – at least part of the time – will also have a significant impact on store portfolios for retailers that serve customer populations in office-based or office space settings.


Read article   Read: Five Post-COVID Trends that will Define the CPG Industry

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