Freedonia

Paradigms shift frequently like sand dunes in the Sahara. You may think you're on solid ground producing packaging with a material such as paper, for instance. And then, boom! Suddenly, they say it will no longer be the most dominant material for packaging. That's exactly what's happening with paper versus plastic, according to a recent study by the Freedonia Group.� This study points out that through 2014, plastic packaging is expected to make further inroads in its competition with paper as the most dominant packaging material. Freedonia predicts that some time in the next four years, use of plastics

Times are tough; there’s no doubt about it. Costs are rising, competition is fierce, and the economy is in a tail spin (or nose dive, depending on your perspective) but heading down just the same. “This was a difficult year for the [tag and label] business due not only to macro economic issues including high energy costs and continuing high raw material inflation, but also because of growing competition to labels and tags in the packaging industry itself,” notes Corey Reardon, president and CEO of AWA Alexander Watson Associates. The rising costs of materials—across the board—are at the top of most printers’ lists of