It probably comes as no surprise to those of us in the package-printing and converting industry—or the average consumer, for that matter—that most of the innovation and US market share growth among food containers is not with metal cans and glass jars. While these materials dominated the field as recently as 20 or 30 years ago, they have been and will continue to be replaced by plastics—especially flexibles such as pouches and bags in the years ahead.

Overall, US demand for food containers is keeping pace with population growth. Sales are expected to rise 3 percent a year to $20.7 billion in 2009, says a new study by Cleveland-based market researcher The Freedonia Group, Inc. (www.freedoniagroup.com). Advances will be stimulated by rising disposable incomes, smaller household sizes, consumer demands for more convenience foods, and trends toward value-added packaging promoted with high-impact graphics.

Freedonia estimates upwards of 249 billion food-container units will be sold in 2009. This level will be aided by the growing popularity of single-serving packaging, such as plastics cups and pouches.

Bags and pouches will log the fastest growth among major food-container types, Freedonia says, already dominating last year's $17.7 billion market. While rigid-container demand will rise 2.3 percent in the 2004–2009 period, pouch sales are expected to grow 6.2 percent a year to more than $4 billion. Improved performance over competitive materials as well as new resin technologies for plastics will only push flexibles higher in the minds of converters, end-users and consumers.

One of the more recent examples of today's trendy flex packs is Bemis Polyethylene Packaging Div.'s (www.bemisppd.com) premade bag for Gold 'n Plump frozen chicken products (shown above). The monolayer low-density PE bag, flexographically-printed in eight colors by Bemis PPD in Terre Haute, IN, incorporates a patented Hefty® Slide-Rite® slider-zipper closure from Pactiv Corp. (www.pactiv.com). Gold 'n Plump says that the package has produced the best sales results of any package to date, and the company will expand its use of resealable flex packs for other product lines in the future.

Demand for bags and pouches will be driven by continued applications for standup pouches (see Innovations, page 2), says Freedonia. The advantages of visual appeal, product differentiation, portability, resealability and freshness protection are the leading factors.

Paperboard food-container sales will increase at a slower pace, because further growth is threatened by competition from plastic alternatives, reports Freedonia. At the same time, new aseptic and retort cartons are forecasted to gain a wider acceptance by US consumers, typically at the expense of metal cans.