Plastic beverage caps and closures are now more popular than metal closures, according to the latest report from market analyst Canadean.
According to Canadean’s ‘Innovation in Caps and Closures’ report, published in November 2013, plastic closures (49%) overtook metal closures (48%) last year, accruing the largest share of the global market for beverage closures.
By comparison, in 2007 metal closures held 51% of the market.
“The advance of plastic closures is primarily associated with a shift towards more innovative, lightweight, cost saving packaging,” Canadean states.
Plastic closures have benefitted during the economic downturn, the analyst suggests, from an increased focus on cost and material savings in the beverage industry, with the aim of delivering cheaper closures that require minimal adaptation of installed technology.
The intrinsically lightweight properties and strong potential for innovation in plastic caps and closures have been of commercial benefit in this respect.
Canadean’s director of packaging services Dominic Cakebread says: “Plastics closures crossed a critical threshold last year in overtaking the share of their metal counterparts across all CPG end-markets.”
According to Cakebread, the recent growth of plastic closures has been driven partly by the associated gain in share of plastics containers and partly by further advances in closure design, materials and systems.
“These have been focusing on reducing polymer weight and cost, while maintaining or improving technical performance and convenience features,” he says.
“It is the greater flexibility of plastics to adapt to the changing demands of the closure market that give them their ongoing advantage.”
In recent years, the lightweighting of packaging has in general been a strong trend within the beverage industry, as suppliers continue to strive to develop products that satisfy both environmental and cost concerns.
According to Canadean, the gap between plastic and metal closures is expected to widen, with 52% of the market expected to be held by plastic closures in 2017.
