Market Report
The Future of Functional & Barrier Coatings for Paper & Board to 2028
Stephen Harrod discusses outlooks for functional and barrier coatings
We caught up with Stephen Harrod, author of The Future of Functional & Barrier Coatings for Paper & Board to 2028 about the key industry growth areas.
Stephen Harrod spent 11 years building a market research company in South Africa, focused on the paper and packaging industry in that country, following which he spent six years in the paper industry with Mondi and JAC Labels before relocating to the UK. He has been authoring reports for Smithers since 2006, with a focus on global paper and packaging markets.Where are the growth opportunities for the functional and barrier coatings for paper and board market?
Foodservice and healthcare markets offer the best growth opportunities, with personal care products following closely behind, in terms of medium-term annual growth rates. In process terms, water-based materials are being developed to replace solvent-based coatings, while regionally the Asia-Pacific region, apart from Japan, offers the highest growth rates over the medium term.
Sustainability is the largest pressure on the packaging industry at the moment, how does the coatings industry fit in with this?
As with most packaging markets, sustainability is at the forefront of R&D activities and many new techniques and technologies are coming to the fore in efforts to improve the carbon footprint of this market.
Can the industry keep pace with the increased demand from consumers for paper packaging?
As things stand there appears to be sufficient capacity for paper-based materials to meet the gradual transition from plastics to paper. However, should the pace of this change accelerate significantly, there may be instances of shortages in availability for some paper grades.
What do the next five years look like for the functional and barrier coatings for paper and board industry?
Growth-wise we are looking at a market showing real growth approaching 6% annually in volume terms over the next five years, and in the current global economic climate this is not insignificant, while water-based materials are likely to show even more attractive opportunities. Recyclability is the ‘holy grail’ for the functional and barrier coating industry, as this determines the level of acceptability of the final product to both brand owners and consumers – it does no good to develop an unrecyclable paper-based material to replace a plastic one.