Soft Drinks Packaging Market Trends, Statistics, Growth, and Forecasts

Market Overview

Rigid plastic packaging is still experiencing growth within soft drinks. Sustainability has been a growing trend within packaging, leading to high growth in metal beverage cans across a number of categories. Plastic has come under scrutiny and the backlash has slowed, but not stopped the growth in PET bottles. The main area of concern has been within the bottled water category. As the biggest soft drinks category, it produces the most plastic waste; however, growth in PET bottles continues to be spurred by growth in still bottled water. Other bottled water categories have been quicker to adapt. Metal beverage cans are the most common pack type among flavoured bottled water, and are making steady gains within carbonated bottled water. This further swells the operation and, as a result, small- and mid-size vendors face operational and financial difficulties in production. Intense competition and stringent regulations have also restricted the growth of the market.

Metal beverage cans continues to see high growth as a pack type, tied to high growth in smaller soft drinks categories that have adopted the can as a main pack type. One of the highest growth categories is flavoured bottled water. Part of the category’s appeal is its function as a substitute for sugary carbonates. As a result, flavoured bottled water has been quick to adopt cans as a main pack type in order to better compete with carbonates, and to mimic their portability and convenience. Another caffeinated category, RTD coffee, has also led to gains for metal beverage cans. Cold brew in particular has been a high growth area, and its positioning as an on-the-go energy source and its wide distribution within the convenience channel has led metal beverage cans to be a main pack type.

The juice category has been dragging down shaped liquid cartons. Juice is a large category, and its overall declines have led to declines in some of its most common pack types, such as gable top liquid cartons. The only growth segment within the category, premium juice, has more commonly adopted glass as its main pack type, reducing share and growth for other types. However, gable top cartons still have an opportunity for growth in the shape of a much smaller, but rapidly rising, category. Boxed water has been a growing trend among start up beverage companies as a sustainable response to the enduring growth of plastic packaging.