US stand-up pouches: an outstanding growth

The US stand-up pouch market has seen dramatic growth over the past five years, increasing by 50% in unit volume terms to approaching 17 billion units in 2013. In its new report on the stand-up pouch market, PCI Films Consulting forecasts that US demand for pouches will continue to grow by around 7% p.a. to reach nearly 24 billion units in 2018, at least twice as fast as volume growth expected in the US flexible packaging market as a whole.
Beverages and pet food are the largest end use categories, each accounting for one-third of demand, closely followed by human food applications with around 30% share. Future increases in volume are expected to come from a wide variety of end uses - frozen foods and fruit compotes, frozen spirits, cocktails, baby food, shredded and diced cheese, laundry and dishwashing refill packs and soups. Other opportunities are only in the early stages of development but pouches used to pack motor oils, dietary meal solutions and possibly olive oil and fresh vegetables are forecast to grow in volume.