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

This definitive source of data and information also examines several other aspects of the US flexible packaging industry, including:

• Performance (growth, revenue/volume expectations, profitability, and capital spending)
• Materials and processes (printing and expected material usage)
• End uses (end-use forecast and U.S. Census Bureau retail segments data)
• Structure and consolidation (M&A activity)
• Imports and exports (trade outlook)
• Industry vision, challenges and critical issues

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 US 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 US Census Bureau’s 2016 Annual Survey of Manufactures (ASM) full set of reports for all US 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 US 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.