Flexible packaging saw significant growth in all market segments. With annual sales of approximately $31 billion in 2017, the key flexible packaging markets include retail, food and non-food (medical and pharmaceutical), industrial materials, shrink and stretch films, retail shopping bags, consumer storage bags and packaging, and garbage bags. That was the message delivered by Alison Keane, CEO of the Flexible Packaging Association of America (FPA), at its annual conference in Phoenix, Arizona, last month.

Flexible packaging accounts for about 19 percent of the US $167 billion packaging industry and is the second-largest packaging segment behind corrugated paper, ahead of glass bottles and a variety of rigid plastics. The long-term stability of the strength of flexible packaging, coupled with its substitution for other forms of packaging, has allowed the market share of flexible packaging to grow from 17 percent in 2000 to 19 percent in 2017.

Keane reported that despite a wave of consolidation in the industry, FPA membership has fallen from 668 to 411 due to mergers and acquisitions, but sales are still rising as companies "make more with less." "Twenty years ago we saw big companies buying small and medium-sized companies, but in 2017 we are seeing big companies buying big companies. The current top 10 processors account for 54 percent of the market." "He said.

The growth rate was "stable", with incomes above the GDP benchmark and continuing to rise. Raw materials, however, account for 53 percent of production costs.

The FPA has published a report focusing on those industries that add value to flexible packaging materials, often by adopting multiple processes such as printing, laminating, coating, extrusion and bag/bag manufacturing. Keane noted that the industry was valued at about US $24.1 billion in 2017, excluding retail shopping bags, consumer storage bags or garbage bags.

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