The Flexible Packaging Association’s (FPA) 2018 State of the Flexible Packaging Industry Report released recently online (Sept. 2018) provides industry converters, suppliers, investors, and analysts with insight into the performance (i.e. growth, revenue/volume expectations, profitability, and capital spending) of the U.S. flexible packaging industry over the past year.

The total flexible packaging industry is estimated to be approximately $31 billion in annual sales for 2017. The $31 billion includes packaging for retail and institutional food and non-food (including medical and pharmaceutical), industrial materials, shrink and stretch films, retail shopping bags, consumer storage bags, and wraps and trash bags.

The focus of this report is on the segment of the industry that adds significant value to the flexible materials, usually by performing multiple processes, such as printing, laminating, coating, extrusion, and bag/pouch manufacturing. This segment of the industry is estimated to be about $24.1 billion for 2017, and does not include retail shopping bags, consumer storage bags, or trash bags.

Flexible packaging represents approximately 19% of the total $167 billion U.S. packaging industry, and is the second largest packaging segment behind corrugated paper and just ahead of bottles and miscellaneous rigid plastics packaging. Flexible packaging’s solid long-term strength, coupled with flexible packaging replacing other packaging formats, resulted in the growth of flexibles from 17% in 2000 to the current level of 19% in 2017.

This year’s State of the Industry Report includes data from the U.S. Census Bureau’s 2016 Annual Survey of Manufactures (ASM) full set of reports for all U.S. NAICS industries. Census Bureau data for 2017 is not expected to become available until late fall 2019 or early 2020.

In addition, information for this report is collected from the U.S. Departments of Labor and Commerce, industry analysts, investment banking reports, and other authoritative sources to provide a more complete and insightful picture of the flexible packaging industry.

The FPA (Annapolis, Md., USA) is the voice of the U.S. manufacturers of flexible packaging and their suppliers. The association’s mission is connecting, advancing and leading the flexible packaging industry. Flexible packaging represents over $31 billion in annual sales in the U.S. and is the second largest and one of the fastest growing segments of the packaging industry.

Flexible packaging is produced from paper, plastic, film, aluminum foil, or any combination of those materials, and includes bags, pouches, labels, liners, wraps, rollstock, and other flexible products.