Market Trends of North America PET Food Packaging Industry
This section covers the major market trends shaping the North America PET Food Packaging Market according to our research experts:
Plastic Packaging is expected to Hold Major Market Share
- Plastic packaging is prominently used for the pet food packaging, from airtight wraps to shelf-stable bottles and containers. In this industry, plastics have also driven innovations in packaging design. For instance, modified atmosphere packaging (MAP) helps preserve pet food freshness by capturing a reduced-oxygen air mixture in a plastic package. These advanced and intelligence packaging techniques play a critical role in ensuring not to compromise the integrity of the product while increasing its shelf life drastically.
- In the United States, pet food expenditure is increasing because of the widespread demand for pet ownership. Advances in technology are making boarding, grooming, and training facilities more easily accessible to the owners. The United States is a pioneer in this market with increasing expenditures, thereby driving the plastics pet food packaging market in the country.
- Moreover, the region is also expected to see a rise in plastic packaging used for the pet foods, primarily owing to the recent lockdown that has increased the need for more long-term food storage solutions. With the lockdown, there has been a considerable rise in the food delivery and takeaway services, which is expected to drive the market.
- However, according to Pet Sustainability Coalition (PSC), an estimated 300 million lbs. of plastic waste comes from pet food and treat packaging per year in the United States. Additionally, many of those packages are made from unrecyclable or hard-to-recycle materials, making the cost of recycling more than the value of those materials. PSC also projects at least 99% of all pet food packaging in the US is thrown away instead of being recycled. To tackle this issue, Flex Forward launched a pilot program to inform consumers, retailers, manufacturers, and packaging suppliers about the importance of reducing the overall environmental impacts of plastic packaging in the pet industry and fuel sustainable solutions for the future.
Flexible Packaging Solutions To Drive the Market Growth
- The food packaging solutions such as flexible packaging have been experiencing a positive demand across the end-user industry sectors, such as pet food, retail, consumer goods, and pharmaceuticals, in the country owing to cost-effectiveness and increased shelf-life of the product, downsizing of packaging, rising demand from end-users, and improvements in global manufacturing activities.
- The demand has been catalyzed by the continued rise in the levels of urbanization, a large expatriate population, changing dietary habits, and increasing penetration of e-commerce. Thus, the processed and packaged food market in the region is currently exhibiting strong growth.
- Consequently, pet owners are willing to pay for more value-added products and resulting in a decline of economy pet food, with people moving toward branded product offerings. According to the National Pet Owners Survey, conducted by the American Pet Products Association (APPA), 68% of the US households (about 85 million families) own a pet. For instance, The use of rigid packaging, such as metal cans for pet food, declined in the recent past.