The world is yet to recover fully from the economic depression witnessed after the first world war. However, most countries are steadily transforming their economies into a more stable and expansive platform. One of the industries that are currently reporting a promising expansion is the food packaging industry. This is because food packaging machines and equipments are essential tools for both home kitchen and commercial kitchen. Each day, people come up with amazing innovative ideas aimed at transforming food packaging machines and equipment for the better. Let’s look at some of the innovations that will help the industry grow in 2017.
Improved Labeling and Coding Equipment
Food processing and manufacturing is the largest market segment for packaging equipment. It accounts for over 40% of the total sales. Consequently, the increasing demand from pharmaceutical and food manufacturers to keep their products safe will lead to an increased rate of growth of coding and labeling equipment. According to statistics, the global demand for such equipment will increase by 5.5% by 2017. This means that the total monetary sales will hit $6.3 billion in the same fiscal year.
Advent of New Recyclables
For decades, people have been using the traditional landfills as the standard form of disposal for food products. However, things are slowly changing for the better when it comes to waste disposal. The world is slowly adopting more efficient and eco-friendly methodologies. One of them is the adoption of recyclable food packaging equipment. Today, restaurant operators can proudly present to you a biodegradable bowl. This bowl is created from a mixture of systematically layered paper. It works well with soups, sauces and other snacks. We expect this trend to continue into 2017 for such innovations to be put into greater use.
Automated Production System
One of the innovations that are expected to rock the food production industry come 2017 is the automation of the whole system. In fact, most manufacturers will start to integrate their system to enable it control the entire production process and ensure it is automated.
Automation is quite beneficial because it makes the work environment safer. Also, it ensures that there is uninterrupted manufacturing process by eliminating situations where an operator becomes sick or makes costly mistakes. Therefore, an employer can allow the workers to focus on something else that will add value to the company.
We expect the new equipment to take automation to a new level. We expect them to post the fastest sales gains in the market. In places like Illinois, there is already a huge overhaul of the food processing and packing system. Also, there is minimum rise in wages planned for the entire process. This means the employers can optimize the scope of operation without creating an imbalance in workers’ wages.
More Expansion
There is currently expansion and merger of various end products in food packaging industry. This is probably fueled by the change in buying habits and improved living standards globally. The current events are what can be termed as a buying spree or a feeding frenzy going on in the industry.
With the current situation, firms that can pull together leading components in the industry and leverage the resulting synergy by the end of 2017 are probably the winners here. Such companies are in a position to mobilize their engineers to come up with user-friendly products while maintaining the quality standards.
The Bottom Line
There is expected growth in demand for food packaging equipment at a 4.6% annual rate through 2017. Also, developing countries are expected to provide the best market for suppliers of packaging equipment by the end of 2017. For example, Asia region will record the highest platform for packing market accounting for 21% of the total value. In short, 2017 will continue to be a strong market for packaging machinery.
