The North American Food Hard Plastic Packaging Market

Data provided by Rigid Food Packaging, a newly published research report of Business Communication company, Inc (Business Communication Company, abbreviated as BCC) specialized in industrial research and market analysis by Norwalk, Connecticut, USA, 2004 In North America, the total amount of hard plastic packaging used in foods in North America reached 4.673 million tons, and it is expected to exceed 6.18 million tons in 2008, with an average annual growth rate (AAGR) of 5.8%.

The hard packaging "container" consists of the following different structural products: bottles, boxes, cans, covered buckets, etc., which are relatively easy to distinguish. Other containers include frozen, low-temperature food packaging and room-temperature food packaging of different shapes and thicknesses, and are suitable for reheating requirements of microwave ovens, mainly hard plastics and foamed plastic products. Hard-pack molding methods include injection molding, blow molding (hollow molding) and thermoforming. The food plastic hard packaging market also includes food service industry supplies such as bowls, cups, plates, lids, stoppers, and covers.

PET is the largest amount of food hard-packaging resin, and its market demand increase is higher than the total increase of food plastic hard packaging. It is estimated that the consumption in 2004 will be 2.635 million tons, and the AAGR before 2008 will be 6.4%, which is the order of consumption according to the following order: : HDPE, PS, PP, with the highest AAGR of PP, up to 7.3%. Polycarbonate (PC) is mainly used for small packages with a small amount, but the AAGR is as high as 7.4%, and the amount will be increased to 45,400 tons in 2008.

The main products of food plastic hard packaging are various beverage bottles, milk bottles, meat containers, cooked food packaging (frozen and microwave reheated), food service industries use a variety of supplies and large containers, large containers are mainly used for liquid food package.

At present, the largest amount of hard plastic food packaging is still bottles, the main raw material is PET, followed by liquid food packaging blow-molded containers, with PET and HDPE as the main resin. Another important market is thermoformed PS and PP containers.