ReleaseWire

Magline has taken a leadership role in route distribution which directly impacts those industries involved with packing and packaging. Because of this important industry leadership role, Magline, Inc. will be exhibiting at booth #205 during the National Beer Wholesalers Association’s (NBWA) 77th Annual Convention & Trade Show. The tradeshow will take place September 28 - October 1, 2014, at the Hyatt Regency New Orleans in New Orleans, Louisiana.

The excise tax of MX$7.00 on 20-unit cigarette packs, which came into effect in 2011, resulted in a unit price increase of almost 30% in current value terms during that year. Moreover, instead of reducing the consumption of cigarettes, manufacturers argued that this rather drove up sales of illicit cigarettes to 15% of the market in 2012. This certainly led to a drop in volume sales of established brands, in the face of which manufacturers decided to implement alternative strategies to cope with this decline. Among these strategies were stronger advertising of 14-unit packs to prevent trading down to cheaper brands. Leading brand Marlboro had containers with display areas installed in many small independent grocers and convenience stores in Mexico, in which the advertising of 14-unit packs can be prominently seen. Also, larger pack sizes with longer cigarettes (100s size) gained presence on retail shelves as they provide a higher value-per-price ratio to consumers. Some other strategies include the launch of special editions, such as the traditional brand Faros, which revived its image with beautifully decorated metal cases in limited editions during the 2011-2012 period.

Leading industrial packaging supplier in Sydney Redpak has announced clearance sale on its products this August. The company has assured up to 80 percent discount for customers.

In spite of all obstacles glass has faced in earning greater penetration, which include high cost pressures when compared to other materials, it has fared well enough, thanks to growing premiumisation trends within alcoholic drinks. Glass is the most important pack type across all categories in alcoholic drinks - and this will not change. On the contrary, glass manufacturers have been increasingly working on designs for glass bottles for spirits and beer that are true masterpieces. For example, the Milagro tequila brand saw the launch of a glass bottle that has a unique maguey (ie the plant from which tequila is made) miniature shape on the inside, made up from the same bottle glass. Alcoholic drinks consumers are still guided by the product presentation, in which glass emerges as a leader.

The Box Co-op, a producer of custom-printed cardboard boxes for retail products and a variety of other uses, announced the availability of a number of informative new guides and articles. The new resources, available for free at the company's website, show how even inexperienced customers can easily and economically arrange for the design and production of custom boxes for their own products. The Box Co-op serves a wide range of the country's fastest-growing and most ambitious businesses, making it possible for even those with relatively limited resources to secure the kind of highly professional, impressive packaging that makes their products stand out.

Home care is a quite mature category in Mexico given the already high penetration of these products in most households and the fact that consumers spend less time at home, reducing the need for frequent cleaning habits. Unit volume of home care packaging grew by only 2% in 2012 to reach 2.7 billion units. In order to add more dynamism to this industry, towards the end of the review period, new pack types and closures were observed within some categories such as fabric softeners, spot and stain removers, multi-purpose cleaners and bleach. For example, in order to provide a better match with product aromatic claims, leading brands of fabric softeners such as Downy and Suavitel saw the modification of their closures in their traditional HDPE bottles to turn them into flower-shaped ones, providing a more sophisticated and modern image that appeals to housewives who wish to attain the best results in their laundry tasks. Trade sources indicated that manufacturers of fabric softeners and liquid detergents have undergone significant investments in order to produce brightly coloured HDPE bottles that were not observed in the market some years ago. As a result of this, walking along the laundry care aisles in supermarkets has turned into a more pleasant experience for consumers.

Pet care consciousness is growing in Mexico, with more people concerned over issues such as animal abuse and the increasing population of dogs and cats wandering in the streets. Moreover, trends such as pet adoption instead of buying newly-born animals are gaining momentum and a greater number of followers and volunteers are working for non-profit organisations to support such causes. With all this in mind, Mexicans are starting to treat their pets as one more family member, particularly those living in single-person households or couples without children. This trend has translated into greater purchasing of packaged pet food, not only in its typical dry varieties that come in large pack sizes for daily meals, but also with Mexicans showing more willingness to pamper their pets with more wet food and treats and mixers. As a result of this, unit volume of packaged dog and cat food grew by 2% in 2012, an actual increase of 10 million units, to reach 429 million units.

Even when the beauty and personal care packaging industry did not register particularly dynamic growth during 2012, it was positive in all categories due to a number of factors. These included natural population growth, a greater number of women joining the workforce and increasing their purchasing power, a stronger personal care culture promoted through mass and social media as well as the steady emergence of new products. All in all, the beauty and personal care packaging industry registered an increase of 3% in unit volume terms during 2012, but with key categories such as sun care, depilatories and hair care showing more dynamic growth of 4-5%.

With the emergence of more fresh coffee brands, given the current expansion of gourmet trends, standard pack types in hot drinks such as glass jars have been losing out to less traditional pack types such as metal tins, folding cartons and flexible aluminium plastic. Owners of gourmet brands of fresh coffee, such as Garat, Cordoba, Blason or Santa Fe, have resorted to new materials like flexible aluminium plastic, based on a better preservation of product flavour. In turn, the owner of the premium brand Cafe Punta del Cielo has associated its product with metal tin presentations, which are now associated with this and other new premium brands, such as Illy.

Thanks to the continued growth of alcoholic drinks, in particular beer, alcoholic drinks packaging continued to register positive 9% unit volume growth in 2012. The biggest contributor remained glass bottles. Manufacturers continue to see the competitive advantage of glass bottles over other types of packaging in terms of cost efficiency as they rely on the returnable glass bottles to be cleaned and reused. Furthermore, on-trade demand for alcoholic drinks surpasses that in the off-trade due to the alcoholic drinks culture that is best enjoyed while socialising. Returnable glass bottles in on-trade channels continue to benefit manufacturers and the foodservice vendors in terms of profit margins.

The worsening situation in the Spanish economy, rising unemployment levels and the falling levels of consumer confidence had a negative effect on sales of alcoholic drinks over 2012. The foodservice channel continued to be most affected by the worsening economy - consumers have increasingly preferred consumption at home to save on costs, thereby benefitting sales in the retail channel, having a direct impact on alcoholic beverage packaging over the year.

One of the worst consequences of the deep economic crisis Spain has undergone over the last two years of the review period, and which finalised in Q3 2013, is the unsustainable unemployment rate which was at 26% by October 2013 according to national sources. This fact is resulting in a polarisation of Spanish society: On one hand, there are those Spaniards who still have a job that are benefiting from lower prices and opting to buy extra value products, especially gourmet and premium lines,...

The worsening economic situation in Spain continued affecting consumption in the foodservice channel to the benefit of the retail channel as consumers were required to reduce costs. This shift in consumption evolved into demand switching from traditional glass bottles to convenient and low-cost packaging preferred in retail consumption, most significantly PET bottles in medium/large sizes and metal beverage cans in high-value multipacks. Metal beverage cans in cola carbonates was the pack type to benefit most from this trend, with brand owners aiming at attracting consumer attention by offering price promotions of their products in multipacks in hypermarkets and supermarkets. Brand owners preferred offering promotions on multipacks rather than decreasing the price per unit in an attempt to not jeopardise their brand advantage over fast-growing private label products in the market.

Energy saving and environmental protection were key themes in 2011/2012, reflected in the increasingly popular refill pack in home care packaging. Home laundry, dishwashing and liquid electronic insecticides manufacturers have launched refill pack for their products, which are not only cheap in pricing, but also eco-friendly. Such refill packs are most commonly seen in plastic and aluminium/plastic pouches.

The sluggish economy in France hampered the level of consumer purchasing power. French consumers paid more attention to their spending and showed higher price sensitivity by cutting down on non-essentials. Since 2010, Henkel has marketed its liquid detergents by adjusting their product and prices in order to come into alignment with the lower consumer purchasing power. As a result, the positioning of its X-Tra range as a low-cost liquid detergent enabled PET bottles to grow in France, which created an opportunity for plastic screw closures to perform well.

In hot drinks packaging in Switzerland a major trend is towards convenient single-portion packaging, despite being high-margin products. This trend can not only be seen with the premium brand Nescafe, but also the leading Swiss discounter Aldi Suisse has introduced a capsule coffee machine "Aurora" with coffee pods called "Martello". In addition, the two largest Swiss grocery chains Migros and Coop also offer their own range of coffee pods under their private label names. However, the single-portion pods are not only popular within coffee, the brand Delizio (available in Migros) sells peppermint or rooibos tea in single portions. Another example of a very successful single-portion system with capsule machine is Kraft Food's "Tassimo", which sells coffee, tea and cacao hot drinks in pods. Such single-portion pods are mostly made of metal and in Switzerland they can be separately recycled in specially designed containers.

2013 was a flat year for the packaging industry in France. The impact of the fragile economic climate led consumers to favour staying home and purchasing food through the retail channel at the expense of foodservice to save money. Additionally, consumers become more cost-savvy in terms of spending, showing higher price sensitivity and consciousness. Consumers tend to spend less but better, resulting in a change in purchasing patterns. This has therefore had an impact on volume sales of the...

Beauty and personal care packaging continues to show solid unit volume growth. Whilst some high value products have suffered as economic stagnation continues, strong unit volume growth in deodorants and bath and shower has continued. Color cosmetics, which includes nail products, grew significantly in 2012, by 2% and 4%, respectively, as the trend of affordable luxury continues during recessionary times. Buying a wide variety of make-up products and nail varnishes from high-end brands such as MAC, Nars, OPI or Essie, is a relatively inexpensive way for consumers to spoil themselves. These are the major categories within beauty and personal care which have performed well in volume terms.

In order to thwart microbial growth and render the product contamination free, packaging plays a vital role and serves the purpose of safety throughout the shelf life of pharmaceuticals. In regulatory perspective, packaging has gained a significant importance and need critical compliance. The packaging equipment market for pharmaceutical has evolved from conventional packaging systems to modern and automated system, and it is well on its way to further growth. Our study suggests that packaging equipment market for pharmaceutical is expected to grow at a healthy CAGR from 2013 to 2020. This report analyses the global packaging equipment market for pharmaceutical, and investigates the reasons for its growth. The study investigates different market segments and identifies the most beneficial among them. The analysis creates the absolute picture of competition and recognizes the strategies of key leaders.

In light of growing demand for and pressure to produce environmentally-friendly packaging, brand owners turned more towards the use of flexible packaging during the review period. Therefore the use of flexible packaging as primary packaging saw significant growth within hot drinks packaging.

Allflex, a company that provides plastic injection molding production, is pleased to announce they have expanded their services to include metal injection molding production. Acting as a variation of plastic injection molding, metal injection molding (MIM) enables the fabrication of metal parts utilizing traditional injection molding technology. MIM is best suited for high-volume production of small metal parts.

JBConline.co.uk now offers top-notch quality glass storage jars at the most reasonable prices. The company has successfully set standards in their industry by being a renowned global packaging company. Their experienced and supportive team provide jars of all sizes, such as 0-200ml, 2-300ml, 300ml +, and kiln Clip jars. In order to compliment the product’s high quality, glass packaging is additional.

Soft drinks enjoy immense popularity as they agree with the lifestyles of the German population, which is greatly influenced by heightened health consciousness. In particular, bottled water profits from this development as it is considered a health-enhancing beverage. The German mineral water industry offers a variety of brands, packaging types and sizes in order to tap into prevailing consumer trends. Brands need to justify their presence in order to maintain their leading positions and not to be ousted by private label items. Equally important are the aesthetics, functionality and ecological factors of packaging.

Increasing consumption of fresh coffee ground pods boosted the demand for other metal. According to trade press, the demand for machines that use coffee capsules was expected to increase by 117% in the first quarter of 2012 compared to the same period in 2011 and represented 20% of total sales of coffee machines. This implies strong growth in the consumption of pods in Argentina, where the brand Nespresso stands out.

PET continues to dominate soft drinks packaging and it even increased its share in 2012, growing in both the retail and foodservice channels as the trend towards lightweighting and recycling continued to be a focus for consumers, manufacturers and retailers alike. Among the main advantages of using PET are its greater cost-effectiveness for manufacturers and that is 100% recyclable. According to industry experts, the plastics market on the whole is aiming to use and consume less - utilising more sustainable methodologies and practices will dominate the market moving forward. As plastic has been on the rise in soft drinks, the demand for paper, glass and metal packaging suffered slightly and is likely to remain at more static levels, although all three materials are expected to retain a significant presence in the UK drinks industry.