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The latest news on the Packaging Industry, a major sector for GTMA member companies who have been part of the supply chain for many years.

Packaging is the planning, creating, manufacturing, wrapping, boxing, or bottling of goods for consumer, industrial, and military markets.

The global packaging market size is estimated at $1.14 trillion in 2024 and is expected to grow at an annual rate of 4%, complex and high value packaging is growing at twice this rate. The UK packaging manufacturing sector has annual sales of around £11 billion, employing more than 85,000 people, representing 3% of the country’s manufacturing workforce.

Growth areas include the use of recyclable and reusable products. The environmental concerns around disposal of packaging are generating innovative developments in sustainability to address both concerns. The circular economy is particularly central to the packaging industry. Single use packaging requires an effective and efficient system for reclamation and reprocessing. In specialist high value sectors significant investment is being made to create sophisticated packaging which is functional in protecting and facilitating the use of the enclosed product, medical devices and sensitive electronic componentry included.

Acquisitions in the packaging industry indicate that large distribution/logistics companies are purchasing major packaging companies to own the entire cycle for manufacture, supply, reclaim, resupply. The engineering and manufacturing challenges in this fast-moving sector present significant opportunities for UK manufacturing companies in design and manufacture of tooling and product.