Disruptive tech will transform consumer packaging

Time-temperature indicators, active packaging, battery-free printed RFIDs and high-barrier biopolymers to have major impact on everyday food, pharma and beverage packaging.
PRESS RELEASE, Converting Magazine, Dec. 14, 2009

Capable of eventually displacing an existing technology and transforming the industrial landscape, disruptive technologies are now revolutionising the consumer packaging industry, according to a major new study by Pira International.

Based on primary research and expert analysis, Forecasts of Disruptive Technologies in Consumer Packaging to 2019 seeks to identify and assess the various, exciting disruptive technologies that are being commercialised in the consumer packaging sector. Classifying technologies on the basis of components (e.g. RFID labels, bioplastics) and end-use packaging products (e.g. beverage containers, blister packs), the study examines the possible integration of these innovative technologies into corporate business strategies and plans.

Generally seen in low or high-end niche markets, a disruptive technology is essentially a new, emerging technology that upends an existing technology and eventually replaces it, or at least is accepted as its equivalent. This occurs even though the new technology originally appears to be inferior or too expensive. These technologies tend to cultivate slowly at first, then grow at an exponential pace. Once established and available at a reasonable benefit-cost ratio, the technology may act like a virus wiping out more conventional technologies and eventually taking over the mainstream.

Recent trends impacting consumer packaging technology include material and energy cost fluctuations due to volatile oil prices, growth of sustainable packaging and new innovations in materials and packaging formats (e.g. increased penetration of flexible packaging and rigid plastic in food packaging).

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