Top 3 Trends Driving Change in the Packaging and Label Industry

For label and package providers, knowing what brand owners want is one of the best ways to ensure your business’s growth and profitability.

To give printers and converters an idea of what to look out for, Alliance Insights — PRINTING United Alliance’s research arm, formerly known as NAPCO Research — conducts an annual survey of label and package printers and brand owners to identify key opportunities for growth in the digital package printing space. The results of the survey are analyzed and put together as part of the digital packaging research series.

While this year’s report — the fourth edition in the series — will be released in full next week at the Digital Packaging Summit in Ponte Vedra Beach, Florida, Cory Francer, analyst at Alliance Insights, shared a sneak peek of the data during a session at PRINTING United Expo 2025 in Orlando, Florida.

Here are three trends packaging and label providers should keep top of mind.

Sustainability

Once again, sustainability is a key concern for brand owners. However, the specific facets of packaging sustainability brands are prioritizing are shifting. According to the 2024 report, 60% of brands ranked recyclability as their top packaging sustainability demand; in this year’s survey, that percentage dropped to 42%.

The other sustainability attributes taking priority? Lightweighting and rightsizing are on 37% of brand owners’ radars, followed by reusability (34%) and reduction of packaging material waste (30%).

“This was interesting to see how brands are thinking a little more holistically, beyond just how the package is getting disposed of at its end of life,” Francer said. “They're thinking about making it fit the product more more appropriately. Can it be reused? And can you reduce waste in the production process, and overall, just waste reduction throughout the packaging life cycle?”

While some brands may be transitioning to this more holistic approach to packaging sustainability of their own volition, Francer explained that external factors are certainly having an impact on these priorities.

“What was interesting to see is just how much of an impact legislation and regulations are having on sustainability decision-making,” he said. “Forty-one percent [of brand owners] said this is highly significant, 34% said it's a significant factor. And we're seeing a lot of this with EPR [extended producer responsibility] legislation and regulations that are really pushing brands into these sustainability drivers. It's not just about, ‘oh, this is a nice thing to do.’ Now, it's becoming something that they have to do because of some of the legislation and regulations they're being faced with.”

SKU Proliferation and Versioning

Also on brands’ priority lists is offering more SKUs. According to data from the forthcoming digital packaging report, 61% of brand owners said they increased their number of SKUs over the past 24 months. Looking forward, the percentage of brand owners who expect their SKU quantities to increase over the next 24 months was even higher — at 75%.

The biggest driver of brands’ SKU increases is consumer demand for more variety in their product mix, with 59% of brand owners citing this. Other top reasons were keeping up with competitors (43%) and increasing limited-edition products or packaging designs (43%).

Touching on the aspect of consumer demand, Francer said part of that is the need for personalization, which doesn’t just mean putting someone’s name on a package.

“Product lines are expanding to meet the needs of all kinds of consumers, and this one-size-fits-all approach is not really cutting it anymore,” he said. “Particularly in the personal care product space, everyone has different needs, different hairstyles, different skin types. There are so many different consumers out there that one type of product is not going to fit everyone's needs, so brands really need to expand to make sure that they're providing all of those options for all types of consumers that may be purchasing their product, and giving the individual consumer what they need to serve their specific desires for the product.”

Francer added that tapping into consumers’ personal interests is also an opportunity for SKU proliferation and versioning. This can range from including celebrity endorsements on packaging to customizing a package to reflect a consumer’s local professional sports teams.

Embellishment and Enhancement

Packaging and label providers should also be aware of how important embellishment and enhancements are.

During his presentation, Francer shared a key insight from “The Return of Touch: Reimagining Consumer Engagement in 2025,” a report from Quad and The Harris Poll: 86% of consumers between the ages of 18 and 44 said touching a product is essential when making a purchasing decision. The report also found that, for 71% of those consumers, physical retail experiences deepen their connection with brands.

However, 47% of brand owners in the 2025 digital packaging survey indicated that designing a package to influence purchasing is among their top packaging challenges.

Despite this, only 27% of brand owners indicated that special effects or embellishment capabilities are essential when selecting their label or packaging provider, while 46% said those capabilities are very important.

“I was a little surprised to see more brands not telling us that this was essential, given just how important these attributes are in packaging to drive that purchasing behavior,” Francer said. “So I'd be curious to see if that goes up in the future, as things get more competitive on shelf.”

Some of the embellishments Francer recommended packaging and label printers consider are foil and metallics, which can be applied via conventional or digital processes; embossing and debossing; and specialty coatings — like soft touch and spot UV — and beyond. For example, Francer mentioned a folding carton produced by Hub Folding Box a few years ago for Crown Royal whisky that incorporated a mesquite wood scent into the actual box.

“We think about the visualization of it, we think about the touch component of it, but thinking about, ‘how can we entice even a third sense for the consumer’ I thought was a really interesting application,” he said.