Pyrotec, September 2019:
In its latest long-term forecast analyses – The Future of Packaging: Long-Term Forecasts to 2028 – Smithers Pira outlines four key trends that indicate how the packaging industry is set to evolve. Let’s consider how Pyrotec keeps up with global trends:

Economic and demographic growth

The general expansion of the global economy is expected to continue over the next decade, the global population will expand, and the rate of urbanisation will continue to grow.

Rising life expectancy in key developed markets, such as Japan, will lead to aging populations and increasing demand for healthcare and pharmaceutical products. Simultaneously, there is a need for easy opening solutions and packaging adapted to the needs of seniors.

Pyrotec PackMedia’s Fix-a-Form® Booklet Labels are particularly suited to packaging for the elderly. Small packs already have limited space for product information and branding and need to accommodate vast amounts of regulated on-pack information.

By using Fix-a-Form® Booklet Labels, packaging can be improved for seniors because font sizes can be increased and printed in contrasting colours for better legibility – without having any impact on legal requirements, the packaging’s visual appeal, design elements, or the product’s branding.

Sustainability

With sustainability now a key motivator for consumers, brands are increasingly interested in packaging materials and designs that are environmentally friendly. Minimising food waste is another important goal for policymakers. This is where packaging technology can have a major impact – for example by using flexible formats such as high-barrier pouches and retort pouches to add extra shelf-life to food products.

The Markem-Imaje SmartDate X60 from Pyrotec PackMark excels for the most demanding, high-volume applications while delivering high-resolution thermal transfer printing at ultrafast speeds.

Its long-life thermal printhead can print 300 DPI codes on flexible packaging film at more than 350 packs/minute, and its Digital Ribbon Save Print Mode reduces ribbon consumption by 20%.

Consumer trends

Consumers are increasingly buying more goods online, people are consuming more products on-the-go and, with the move to single-person living, more consumers are inclined to shop for groceries more frequently, in smaller quantities. This has driven growth for convenience store retailing, as well as boosting demand for more convenient, smaller size formats. Another key trend is consumers paying more attention to their health.

Fix-a-Form® Booklet Labels from Pyrotec PackMedia occupy the same space of a standard self-adhesive label. They increase brand awareness with their enhanced graphics and ability to communicate, educate, inform, and provide opportunities for value adds, such as chain of custody or product health benefit information.

Brand owner trends

According to Smithers Pira, just two brand owner trends are the continued rise of internationalisation within the FMCG sector, e-commerce and international trade. This is stimulating a demand for components such as RFID labels and smart tags that protect against counterfeiting and enable better supply chain monitoring.

NFC (near-field communication) is a wireless technology that’s embedded into most smartphones. It has an array of applications from mobile payments to NFC tags embedded into products, labels and promotional material.

These smart little tags, available from Pyrotec PackMedia, can store varied information, including short lines of text, such as a web addresses or contact details, as well as links to apps in the Google Play Store. Most importantly, they can be integrated into packaging without impacting a brand’s identity.

Because of the tag’s unique ID, counterfeiting is prevented, customisation is possible, and authentication is enabled.

For more information about how Pyrotec keeps up with global trends, visit www.pyrotec.co.za.