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This packaging wave is over for thermoforming

This week we present our first ranking looking at the 2023 results for North American plastic processors. The trend line is clear: Packaging thermoforming was heading into a trough while industrial thermoforming was bouncing back.

We've ranked 206 thermoformers in our annual ranking, with related sales of $16.8 billion. That is down 4.2 percent from the previous year.

The average sales per company is $81.7 million. Looking closer, though, the spread is extreme, maybe even redonkulous. Yup, I used that word on purpose. Our top company, Pactiv Evergreen Inc., comes in at $3.6 billion and our smallest, Modpaksol, is $0.001 million.

It may be more informative to look at these breakouts in the aggregate. Comparing year over year, we see a 4 percent decline in our packaging totals vs. a 1.7 percent gain in industrial.

Packaging represents items such as food containers and clamshells, while industrial includes housings and outdoor goods. The two do not adhere to the same market conditions nor pricing formulas, which is why we split them apart.

From my research, the biggest factors for the decline in packaging were resin cost pass-through and slowing demand. The major materials for this ranking were all down double digits in their pricing, with polypropylene showing the largest drop at 32.9 percent. However, not all nonpackaging end markets were up. Recreational vehicles and marine products, for example, took a big hit.

Many processors handle a mix of products, so it's notable that 48 percent of our companies had no reportable year-over-year change.

In total, thermoforming itself makes up about 11 percent of the overall sales we track for all six of our processor rankings, with $156.3 billion in combined annual sales.

* Source : https://www.plasticsnews.com/viewpoint/packaging-wave-over-thermoforming

* Edit : HANDLER