2025 Packaging Outlook: An Opportunity for Growth

In 2025, the packaging and label industry will be absolutely teeming with growth opportunities for established packaging printers and converters, as well as those looking to tack on new offerings.

According to NAPCO Research’s “Digital Packaging: The Pursuit of Prosperity” report, 51% of surveyed brand owners reported factoring packaging design into their consumers’ “unboxing” experiences. Portland, Oregon-based Premier Press is familiar with this, as the company began creating presentation packaging about 20 years ago. Within the past eight years, it has dug deeper into this niche with the growth of influencer marketing packaging.

“The need was there,” Jenna Mackowiak, creative services manager at Premier Press, says. “ … Our clients are really focused on how their product is received into the world. With the [offset and digital] capability that we have in-house, it felt like the next reasonable step to be able to provide their marketing collateral in a variety of different forms.”

Premier Press develops everything from flexible packaging and labels to folding cartons and corrugated.

Augusta, Maine-based J.S. McCarthy Packaging + Print, on the other hand, has focused on folding cartons since it entered packaging about 18 years ago.

“We were very heavy into greeting cards, so we did a lot of foil stamping, a lot of diecutting, we had a small folder/gluer,” President and CEO Jonathan Tardiff says. “ ... For us, it was minimal investment at that time to really get into that market, which was part of the reason why we did it. To be honest, we just kind of fell in love with it after we got into it.”

According to Tardiff, packaging has grown from about 30% of J.S. McCarthy’s business when the company “started to push hard” into packaging shortly before the COVID-19 pandemic, and now comprises 80% of its revenue.

Key Trends from 2024

While some of the biggest trends in the packaging segment are not necessarily new, Cory Francer, an analyst at NAPCO Research, notes they are growing steadily and driving much of the work being done.

“From our research, a lot of what we’re looking into is a lot of the stuff that supports the growth of digital printing,” he says.

This goes hand in hand with other packaging trends, including the increased use of versioning and SKU proliferation, as well as demands for quicker turnaround. These are all high priorities for brand owners, who have learned what can be done with digital technologies by connecting with their packaging providers.

E-commerce has also had a huge influence on the packaging industry in recent years. “E-commerce was skyrocketing pre-pandemic,” Francer says. “During the pandemic, it went crazy. Everyone was buying stuff online. In the years since, it’s kind of plateaued, but it hasn’t dipped.”

In fact, data from the “Digital Packaging: The Pursuit of Prosperity” report showed about 88% of the 131 brand owners surveyed offered their products on e-commerce platforms, whether it was through their own platform (44%), a third-party channel (21%), or both (23%). Only 5% of brand owners said they had no plans to offer products via e-commerce.

Brands are also prioritizing sustainability.

“In production, there can be a lot of waste, and one of our key values is sustainability,” Mackowiak says. “... I think that corrugates and different paper stock materials are really popular in a lot of ways. It may not align with every brand’s identity, but many big-name companies are using this approach almost as a statement to drive their mission — showing their commitment to sustainability through action rather than just words.”

Additionally, some parts of packaging manufacturing historically have been done in other countries, known as offshoring, but David Zwang, principal consultant of Zwang & Co., has seen onshoring increase.

“It actually even goes beyond onshoring; it’s also more regional,” Zwang says. “So instead of manufacturing everything on the West Coast and then shipping it off to the East Coast, [brands] are trying to see if they can bring it in a little bit closer. That saves time, allows them to go to market faster, and obviously has an impact on sustainability as well, because we’re not burning a lot of oil to move stuff around.”

Expectations for 2025

Looking forward, Zwang predicts sustainability will continue to be fundamental as new regulations are enacted. The European Union outlined in its Directive 94/62/EC that, by Jan. 1, 2025, “EU countries should ensure that producer responsibility schemes are established for all packaging.” These regulations will affect inks, the size of packages and how they are filled, what happens to the packaging once its purpose is fulfilled, and more.

“That’s in the EU,” Zwang says. “However, many of the brands are global, which means they are going to — probably, because this is what they’ve done historically — use the same regulations, process requirements, etc. for the stuff that’s going to be done here in the States as it is in the EU. … It’s something you should be aware of because track-and-trace is going to be an issue.” If there’s a problem with a product, its production will be reviewed to see if something went wrong with printing, filling, or anywhere else in the process.

With regard to Premier Press’ work with presentation packaging for influencer marketing, Marti Jacobsen, the company's account director, has seen an uptick in the number of boxes brands are ordering — and expects that to continue in 2025.

While Tardiff foresees growth this year, he doesn’t anticipate any sky-high revenue increases.

“For us, we see a lot of our major clients kind of putting projects on hold,” he notes. “ … There’s a lot of people sitting on the sidelines kind of waiting to see what happens with the economy and with interest rates and whatnot. Right now, I see a lot of status quo going into next year; I don’t see it being a major growth year for us.”

Despite the current climate, opportunity still abounds, especially with the continued growth of digital printing that Francer anticipates.

“... As more digital equipment comes online, more entry-level digital presses are available and they’re becoming easier to use,” he says. “The opportunities are there, and the entry barriers are lower.”