Packaging is not a modern concept. For thousands of years pots, jars, bottles, wraps, and bags have been produced in various forms to transport food, wine, and other goods. However, with advances in materials innovation, packaging’s functions and formats have expanded, enabling more physical goods to be protected and transported than ever before. And, in today’s world, packaging is indeed an essential part of everyday life with the global packaging market sitting at over 1 trillion dollars.
However, as we all know, packaging’s story has its dark clouds: The rise of single-use packaging has contributed to waste accumulation in landfills and the open environment. There are also concerns about the impact of packaging’s production and the potential for leaching harmful chemicals. As such, much of today’s materials innovation activity surrounding packaging focuses not only on improving performance and consumer experience but on achieving sustainability and regulatory compliance as well.
Technology outlook: Consumer packaging materials
Lux’s Matilde della Fontana recently authored the report “Technology Outlook: Consumer Packaging Materials,” where she evaluates the landscape of materials innovation across pulp and paper packaging, monomaterial packaging, compostable packaging, and novel barrier solutions. Her analysis spans over 100 startups and 50 large corporations. The most urgent priorities of packaging companies revolve around designing packaging with end of life in mind and incorporating renewable or recycled content to reduce the use of virgin plastic. However, there are different approaches to improving packaging sustainability, and most emerging technologies face challenges in meeting performance requirements and have not yet reached scale.
Pulp and paper packaging (Monitor)
Pulp and paper are increasingly being considered as substitutes for single-use plastics across various product categories. The potential for volume growth is significant, particularly in applications where plastics’ properties — such as transparency, durability, and strength — are not essential. Recent innovations include new manufacturing processes for molded pulp products that boast thin, high-quality walls and smooth, rigid surfaces comparable to thermoplastics. Dry-molding techniques, for example, reduce production time and enhance aesthetics by pressing fibers into a heated mold without drying, thus lowering energy consumption and speeding up production relative to wet molding. Another major innovation focus includes coatings technologies that address issues like gas and liquid permeation and heat sealability. Coatings can mitigate some of these issues, but paper hygroexpansion still poses a significant challenge, affecting the shelf life of products. Lastly, some innovators are focused on converting nonwood fibers, like wheat straw, into pulp suitable for packaging.
Monomaterial packaging (Engage)
Monomaterial packaging, in particular, is an area ripe with development opportunities. Here, opportunities exist in pouches, flexible films, and blister packs, enhancing recyclability by replacing complex multilayer structures with simpler designs that maintain performance. Companies are already commercializing monomaterial packaging made from oriented polypropylene (PP) films. However, concerns about PP’s recyclability have spurred development toward monomaterial polyethylene (PE) and PE terephthalate (PET) structures. Improving PE and PET resins are crucial to enhance the mechanical properties of these materials and improve their sealability. However, even with advances in plastic resins, challenges remain, particularly for high-barrier applications like food and pharmaceutical packaging. This has opened up opportunities for novel coatings that can lower oxygen and water vapor transmission rates. As the field progresses, other factors — such as the use of inks and labels — will also play a crucial role in defining the future of monomaterial packaging.
Compostable packaging (Monitor)
Bioplastics like polylactic acid (PLA), polybutylene adipate terephthalate, and thermoplastic starch have, because of their compostability, been used as replacements for incumbent plastics in both flexible and rigid packaging. However, such solutions struggle to match incumbent plastics’ performance in terms of thermal stability/processability and barrier performance. Moreover, materials like PLA require specific conditions — such as the right humidity and temperature — to fully break down, requiring industrial composting conditions but are often not accepted at such facilities. Companies are working on improving the heat and thermal stability of these bioplastics or blending different types of bioplastic to support cost and performance outcomes. Novel biopolymers, like algae- and protein-based materials, are appealing because they are more readily degraded and because of the potential to make “natural” claims but are still in development, with just a few players reaching commercial stage.
Novel barrier solutions (Engage)
Advances in barrier technologies are focused on coatings and additives that enhance the protective properties of packaging materials, particularly against oxygen, moisture, liquids, mineral oils, and grease. These solutions aim to replace traditional multilayer plastic films, laminations, or metallization on both fiber and plastic substrates. For plastic substrates, innovations include nanocoatings, surface treatments, and biobased laminations that maintain recyclability or compostability. For fiber substrates, solutions like algae-derived polysaccharides, protein-based materials, and cellulose nanocrystal or microfibrillated cellulose formulations are being developed. Additionally, functional additives can be embedded directly into the substrate, offering a seamless way to enhance performance. Despite significant progress, there are still no widely available solutions that can match the performance of traditional plastic- and metal-based coatings.
For more information and specific details on packaging innovations and opportunities, please be sure to reach out. There are numerous untapped opportunities and white spaces in the consumer packaging materials sector, and stakeholders across the value chain play different roles to drive the adoption of such solutions.