The Future is Here! Top 4 Trends for Caps & Closures Market

In many industries, including FMCG, industrial products and medical supplies, closures are a vital part of product packaging. According to Freedonia Consulting's forecast, global demand for plastic bottle caps will grow at a rate of 4.1% per year by 2021 with Asia-Pacific currently the fastest-growing region due to the high growth of food, beverage, and pharmaceutical production.

Let us take a look at four of the latest trends in the today's Closure market.

1.    INNOVATIVE CLOSURE DESIGN ENHANCES BRAND IMAGE

With the significant rise of eCommerce, social media and the demands for a premium online experience, innovative closure design is playing a key role in company branding and attracting consumer attention. With this in mind, designers are putting more emphasis on a wide range of colours and complex structures which are an emerging trend.

2.    E-COMMERCE DRIVES SAFETY DESIGN

In the past, products were delivered in bulk to stores for sale via traditional offline channels. In the era of e-commerce, shipping has changed to small-volume couriers that place extra challenges on the seals of closures. In addition to the aesthetics aspect, closure designers are now required to consider the greater protection of the product during express delivery, especially focusing on leak proof design.

3.    CONTINUOUS LIGHT-WEIGHTING WITHOUT COMPROMISING SAFETY

In recent years, with increasing awareness of the environmental impact, consumers have been driving the need for more sustainable packaging. Lightweight closure design is a solution to significantly reduce plastic usage and align with the recent trend in green initiatives. On the other hand, for closure manufactures, light-weighting requires less resin, which can effectively reduce material cost in the injection moulding process. Therefore, considering both the economic and social benefits, light-weighting has become a goal of continuous innovation with its own set of challenges, e.g. the need to consider how to keep or improve the performance of closures while reducing their weight.

4.    COST-EFFECTIVENESS IS A CRITICAL FACTOR

How to minimise part cost is an eternal topic for plastic closure manufacturers. They are adopting more innovative processes to improve efficiency, ensuring process stability and part consistency, while reducing waste caused by production defects. Those approaches all contribute to the reduction of closure manufacturing costs.

Example Mastip Solution: 72 Drop 3 Injection Point, Tri-Colour, Valve Gated Stack Mould