Collation shrink film market boosted by emerging use of post-consumer recycled resins
AMI, Bristol, 26/09/22 – A new report from AMI Consulting provides critical analysis of the current and future outlook for the collation shrink film market in Europe. The report quantifies the capacity, production and demand for collation films by country with a five year forecast, and gives an in-depth update on end use application trends, resin developments and their influence on growth dynamics.
Traditionally used to fulfil a secondary transit packaging role, recent years have seen collation shrink develop a strong point of sale presence to provide customer convenience when buying multiple items as well enhancing on-shelf appeal with full face printing opportunities.
The largest use application for collation shrink film is in the packaging for non-alcoholic and alcoholic beverages, followed by food. However, film suppliers to these categories are facing growing competition from cartonboard alternatives due to the consumer anti-plastic sentiment.
The report explores how these factors and others are influencing market demand by application.
The European market is facing several challenges including the aftermath of the Covid-19 pandemic, new sustainability-driven regulations, polymer shortages, logistics challenges, changes to retail channels, inflation due to the war in Ukraine, all of them increasing costs that make consumers reduce their spending.
In the past decade, demand for collation film has been heavily influenced by the continuing shift from monoextrusion to 3-layer coextrusion and further product enhancement by moving from 3-layer to 5-layer coextrusion. This has permitted tailor-made use of enhanced metallocene resins in combination with other established raw materials in order to maximise gauge reduction. Downgauging of virgin resin film has reached its limits in many applications; future innovation is expected to be focused on achieving thinner films with a 30-50% post-consumer recycled (PCR) resin content.
Collation shrink films are an ideal candidate for the incorporation of PCR as they are non-food contact. Recyclate should continue to take share from virgin LDPE, although at a lower pace than the industry may anticipate. Whilst brand owners will increasingly seek to use recyclate to satisfy internal mandates and country legislation, limited availability of high-grade PCR resin will constrain usage and subsequent volume growth over the forecast period.
