PETpla.net Insider 04 / 2011

CAPPING / CLOSURES 38 PET planet insider Vol. 12 No. 04/11 www.petpla.net Asian soft drinks consumption continues to drive future closure demand It’s closure’s time In spite of the economic slowdown in many markets over the last two years, beverage closure demand has continued to grow strongly, driven partly by the sustained shift towards pre-packaged beverage consumption in many developing markets and partly by the continuing growth in popularity of the plastic ‘bottle plus cap’ format – especially PET bottles in smaller ‘on-the-go’ sizes. Understandably perhaps in the more austere commercial climate, the overwhelming theme has been improved efficiency and cost/weight reduction, linked to growing envi- ronmental awareness and market- ing focused on more efficient use of increasingly scarce and expensive resources. This does not mean that the market has lacked innovation how- ever. Rising use of sports caps, dosing caps and similar ‘added value’ features is testament to the fact that the underlying demographic changes that are driving demand for greater convenience in closure design remain in place; it means that these ‘added value’ technical and performance fea- tures now need to be achieved at sim- ilar or lower price and reduced closure weight, creating ever more pressure on beverage closures manufacturers to come up with creative solutions. Looking at the global bever- age closures market in detail, total demand across the soft drinks, dairy drinks and beer markets under review amounted to around 1055 billion clo- sures in 2010. Of this, ring-pull can ends (which unusually for this study are treated as closures) accounted for 24% or about 250 billion closures, plastic closures took a 42% share at 440 billion units and metal closures 31% or 325 billion). All other beverage closures totalled a little below 40 bil- lion, while there are still an estimated 210 billion beverage containers sold each year without dedicated closures (e.g. sachets and perforated cartons). In the years between 2003 and 2010, plastic closures saw their vol- umes increase at around 6.5% per annum, a combination of rising bever- age consumption (in the 2003-2008 particularly), more beverages being sold in plastic bottles and the conver- sion from other closures to plastic. Since 2008 the growth rate of plastic closures has dropped but remained positive and they are still forecast to remain fairly robust in the years to 2015. Metal closure usage on the other hand is only expected to increase by a single percentage in coming years to maintain growth of 3% and 4% throughout the period to 2015. On a regional basis, Asia already accounts for the largest share of total annual closure volumes at 36%, equivalent to around 375 billion units. Collectively, the Americas combine for just under 400 billion, Europe for around 250 billion, the rest of the world around one tenth of that. Global beverage closures by type /% share by volume 2010 Global beverage closures by region 2010 - % share by volume