PACKAGING TOPS DIVERSIFICATION CHOICES

Packaging, warehouse and logistics, and finishing are the three top potential growth areas for the nation’s printers, according to the VMA’s latest Industry Metrics Survey, that asked which areas printers were diversifying into.

Packaging topped the chart last year as well, the results showing that print businesses are looking to expand out of commercial and put their skill sets, and equipment, to use in an adjacent sector.

Warehouse and logistics, and finishing entered the top three, taking over from promotional products and merchandising, and wide format, as areas most printers were looking at moving into.

The last few years have seen a large number of commercial printers eyeing packaging, given its production similarities to commercial print, certainly as far as pre-press and printing go. The mantra ‘you can’t eat your cornflakes off the internet’ stands in contrast to commercial print, where swathes of the market have disappeared.

Offset press suppliers such as Heidelberg, Manroland and Koenig & Bauer are heavily invested in folding carton presses, and are seeing large numbers of their presses sold into businesses for packaging. And the cutsheet digital press manufacturers have been steadily increasing their stock handling capabilities, with most able to print up to 400gsm and more.

In addition to folding cartons, the huge growth from brands switching to pouches for their products, and the demand from small scale operations for on-demand containers, with pouches topping the list, has delivered opportunities for print businesses. 

According to the Industry Metrics survey, 40 per cent of print businesses are looking at diversifying into packaging, while 28 per cent are looking at warehousing and logistics and a similar number at finishing. One in every four printers is thinking of diversifying into wide format and the same number into promotional products and merchandising, with around one in five wanting to diversify into labels.