Plastic injection moulded packaging products are poised to grow well, with food and beverage packaging being the strongest growth sector. Caps and closures are projected to grow particularly well in packaging, contributing to growth.
Several factors will affect overall demand for plastics packaging this year, the most important being the price of crude oil. Material (polymer) costs are the largest input in the total cost of manufacturing most types of packaging, and higher crude oil price affects the price of polymers directly.
Another factor that will greatly affect the market for plastics packaging is the changing trend in profits of the food and beverage industry. Conventionally, food industry profits are closely linked to energy prices because the processes involved in producing, shipping and storing food products are very energy-intensive. However, in recent years, this relationship between energy prices and food industry profits has diminished, largely because of recent technological advances in plastics packaging. The result is that the food industry has enjoyed record profits in the past few years despite steadily increasing energy prices. After a satisfying gain of 15% in 2007, profits for the food industry are poised to rise another 5-7% in 2008. This will provide plenty of incentive for the development of new food and beverage products, many of which will be put into newly designed plastic packages. The food industry is one of the largest end-markets for plastics, and the trend in the retail sector is another good indicator of future demand for packaging. For instance, the cosmetics and healthcare industries have also benefited from improvements in plastics packaging, and retail sales in these two sectors will continue to enjoy above-average growth.

While the above mentioned cyclical indicators herald another year of solid growth in the short term demand for plastics packaging, several long-term trends are also promising for this industry.
The first is energy prices. Plastics packaging manufacturing is typically much less-energy intensive than similar products made from glass or aluminum. End products made from plastics also tend to weigh less, hence cost less to ship. Recent technological advances such as thin-wall molding have enhanced this advantage.
Lower shipping costs are becoming increasingly important because of a second long-term trend: The volume of products being shipped is increasing. Some of this is due to changes in the wholesale distribution system. Growth has also received a boost due to the rapid growth of online purchases which in turn has increased demand for packaging that enhances storage and shipping stability, as well as products like computer chips that improve both security and inventory tracking controls.