[Chinese Packaging Network News] First, the box structure
Boxes are transformed into trays, and die-cut boxes are still hot.
From the perspective of developments and changes in the retail sector already described in the previous chapter, the rise of retail RRP, the rise of online merchants, and the growth of comprehensive convenience stores will prompt a significant reduction in the size of cartons. This change will bring additional growth in the output value of corrugated packaging, but the processing costs of corrugated packaging may increase significantly.
Due to the rapid increase in demand for RRP in the fast-moving consumer market and the desire to cut costs in the industrial goods and consumer durables markets, the trend of corrugated packaging in the direction of pallets and die-cut boxes will continue. However, this needs to increase the investment in die-cutting capacity and new terminal equipment for factories and products in various forms and brands. To a certain extent, this short-term investment suppresses the development trend of corrugated packaging. .
Second, corrugated board structure and type
Microwatts increase will continue to lead the "group"
In the markets of developed regions, there has been no significant change in the share of single corrugated, double corrugated, and triple corrugated cardboard. However, in emerging markets, especially in China, due to the decline in the share of township markets, the increase in modern corrugated cardboard lines and high-quality packaging base papers, the corrugated paperboard has changed from a multiple-barrier structure to a single-corrugated structure. In the domestic and export markets, the increase in the domestic market share and the increase in the share of the FMCG sector have also contributed to this trend.
The significant growth of exquisite printing processes and the wider adoption of “retail-friendly packaging†are prompting the continued heating up of micro-vars. In addition to E楞 and F楞, microwatts are currently classified as G楞 and N楞. In recent months, the development and change of micro-vardas have given rise to new types of corrugated tiles that are different from E楞, such as R楞, S楞, T楞, and P楞. This situation may be replicated in other parts of the world.
Three, with paper weight drop
The reduction in weight can expect the corrugated output to increase by 4.2% in five years.
In the past year, news about reducing the weight of paperboard has been reported in various regions of the world. The performance of these developments in China is particularly striking. For the reasons mentioned above, the weight of corrugated packaging in China will be reduced by 10% over the next five years. In contrast, North America only made minor changes in the lightening of corrugated iron and it is expected that this change will only increase the value of corrugated production by 1.4% in the next five years.
The lightweight development of corrugated iron in the United States is also limited by a variety of factors, such as material handling methods, distribution conditions, and storage methods. It is worth noting that the United States has been very high in the height of stacking of goods.
There are also some deeper factors that have slowed down the trend of lightweight development. Containerboard paper mills are not willing to reduce grammage, and there is also a fact that many existing corrugated board processing equipment are not yet available. Effective processing of low-weight corrugated cardboard.
However, considering the cost savings brought about by light weight and the contribution of environmental protection, these arguments have not been discussed yet. With the continuous improvement of the quality of linerboard and the improvement of packaging design, especially the stacking strength of die-cut packaging and the increase of anti-pressure at the bottom of the carton, the lightweight trend has become unstoppable.
The use of low-weight linerboard (paper less than 100g/m2 and tile less than 90g/m2) is currently used mainly in the European market, and lighter weight will be used more and more widely in all regions of the world. However, the North American market may be an exception.
In short, in the next five years, Wagner will continue to decline at a rate of 0.8% per year and create an added value of 4.2%.
Fourth, exquisite printing process
The growth rate of exquisite printing will be close to double the growth rate of corrugated industry.
The exquisite printing process includes high-line flexographic printing (3 ribbon drying system, usually grouped), lithographic preprinting (including labeling), direct offset printing, screen printing, and digital printing. By comprehensive statistics, this kind of technology accounts for nearly 11% of the global market share.
Judging from past experience, durable consumer goods and electronic products mostly use fine printing techniques. However, in recent years, these areas have been affected by the decline in consumer income resulting in a decline in the high-end consumer market in developed regions, but also affected by the decline in exports from emerging markets.
In the fast-moving consumer goods market, the lack of online promotion and the increasing emphasis placed by merchants on the display of goods in stores, coupled with the eager demand of retailers and brand owners for “ease-to-retail packagingâ€, are making the retail scene's marketing environment a focus of attention. This directly triggers the global growth in the demand for fine printing. It is expected that the growth rate will exceed the growth rate of the corrugated industry by a factor of two.
Lithographic offsets account for the majority of fine prints and will continue to grow because this process has brought the reproducibility of images to the extreme.
Preprinting is facing the challenge of a new generation of high-line flexo presses that can print higher resolution images. And compared with preprinting, the new generation of high-line flexographic printing press orders and production more flexible. These new devices have firmly occupied a place in the field of fine printing. Despite the fact that there is a certain gap in the printing effect, the image effects of printing have become closer and closer to lithographic offset printing.
Screenprint continues to expand its sites, but it has inherently higher costs and labor-intensive congenital defects, and its main applications are still concentrated in scattered display areas such as product pre-packaging, waste bins, and life-size movie posters.
In recent years, large-format digital printing has emerged with some devices that exquisitely print images and have high operability. However, due to the relatively high cost of ink, its use is limited to short-run printing.
The lithographic printing process did not make much progress as we expected. We had hoped that this process would give cartons the opportunity to perform direct offset printing on microvars, but in fact, this did not happen. The main reason is that the cost of the offset printing press is too high, the speed of the press will be reduced, the corrugation in the printing may be flattened, and it is difficult to guarantee that the paperboard will not bend when it is fed.
In the medium and long-term time, the demand for improved image printing in developed regions and emerging markets has caused a significant increase in the market demand for white-faced paper, and its growth rate may greatly exceed the growth rate of corrugated industries and is expected to increase by 5.0 to 5.5 percent annually.