The COVID-19 Pandemic Is Driving Packaging Machinery Spending in North America

While North America’s economy has been hit hard by the COVID-19 pandemic, the region’s packaging machinery industry has benefited greatly from the resulting shifts in manufacturing activity. As a result, packaging machinery has outperformed most other durable goods industries in 2020. 

Following disruptions that occurred during shutdowns as the beginning of the pandemic, North American companies adjusted their supply chains. A considerable number of them have re-shored manufacturing operations. As many existing factories were upgraded and some new facilities opened, suppliers increased spending on new packaging solutions to accommodate the increase in output.

Consumer trends also encourage investment in new packaging equipment:

• Increasing demand for hand sanitizer, for instance, pushed distillers to start supplying these products and to acquire the necessary materials and machinery to package them.
• With demand increasing for numerous pharmaceutical and medical supply products – ranging from medicines and vaccines to rubber gloves and masks – suppliers were also forced to acquire additional packaging equipment.
• As restaurants, bars, concert venues, and other similar establishments closed, suppliers of beer, wine, and alcohol increasingly packaged their beverages in cans and bottles rather than in kegs.
• Food and beverage spending shifted to retail channels, requiring more single- and family-sized packaging over bulk foodservice packaging.

Concerns about the spread of COVID-19 also pushed producers to offer new packaging configurations, some to accommodate new hygiene preferences such as single-serving types not meant for sharing, which can often require new equipment.

With the COVID-19 pandemic expected to continue to impact the North American economy in 2021, many of these trends will continue to drive packaging equipment spending in the region and the outlook for the industry is projected to remain strong.

For more information and a discussion of market opportunities, see The Freedonia Group’s extensive collection of off-the-shelf research, including Global Packaging Machinery, and a comprehensive and authoritative collection of research on the rest of the packaging industry as well as food and beverage research from our sister published Packaged Facts. Freedonia Custom Research is also available for questions requiring tailored market intelligence.