Summer's finally here. Time to take off some of those vacation days that you've earned since January 1, kick back a little and gather your thoughts—especially about where your company's headed in the next few years.

Here's some ammunition. Our e-mail system and fax machine have been fairly buzzing lately with a string of forecasts for various converted-product markets. The report summaries—by way of Cleveland-based The Freedonia Group, Inc., and Packaging Strategies in West Chester, PA—identify six hot new markets that hold a lot of potential not only for packaged-good companies but certainly for the converters who will serve them. Check out these numbers:

Alternative formats for pouches (such as four-corner-seal styles) will see demand rise 17.7 percent a year for pet foods and 16.6 percent for agrichemicals, says Packaging Strategies. Other formats, like stick packs and flat-bottom pouches, will also gain market acceptance. Just ask the makers of yogurt and pudding snacks or upscale pet foods.

The consolidation among sanitary-product converters aside, sales of electrostatic wipes will climb 9.6 percent a year, Freedonia says, while demand for disinfectant wipes will rise 8.3 percent annually. Encouraged by stellar growth in consumer markets, some converters are turning their attention to various industrial applications such as foodservice wipes.

Flexible intermediate bulk containers represent the fastest-growing segment of bulk packaging, says Freedonia. It foresees annual growth of 11.2 percent attributed to low cost, versatility and product performance, along with a rebound in US manufacturing.

Similarly high demand is predicted for specialty films. Conductive film, in particular, will experience 11.4 percent annual increases in demand, Freedonia says. Films used in printed circuits and flat-panel displays should see better than average growth as the electronics industry recovers.

Sales of sterile flex-packs (pouches and plastic IV containers) are forecast to grow about 5 percent a year through 2006, says Freedonia. This reflects an almost 22 percent increase over sales in 2001. Sterile pouches are a good bet for converters via their cost advantages over traditional blister packs and clamshell packaging.

Keeping track of products in all these new markets is partly the responsibility of another hot item: RFID tags. More than 1.4 billion RFID labels for packaging will be in use by 2008, says Packaging Strategies. That's an unprecedented 50-fold increase over estimates of their use in 2002.

The forecasts contained in market-research reports should, of course, be accepted with a dose of common sense. A careful, detailed analysis of any end-use market, the converted product to serve that market, and its potential impact on your company is your job.

Just save that analysis for when you get back to the office.