What's the Outlook for Your Film Market?

 

Already, the polyethylene film extrusion market is the largest in North American in terms of resin consumption. The promise of less costly feedstocks derived from shale gas hold potential to make this business grow even further. What’s more, looming in many PE film markets is the possibility of entry by processors currently outside North America looking to tap into more readily available and (relatively speaking) less expensive resin.

 

But as every extrusion processor realizes, the overall PE film market is in reality made up of series of slices: stretch film, shrink film, industrial can liners, consumer trash bags, T-shirt bags, food packaging film…to name a few. For many film processors, one of those markets—or a combination of a couple—is their business.

 

Wouldn’t you like a crystal ball to see what the prospects are for growth over the next three years in the precise market(s) you serve? Wouldn’t it be helpful to learn if you might want to consider shifting your production resources from one market to another?

In the absence of crystal balls and Magic 8 balls, working with consulting company Mastio and Co., St. Joseph, Mo., next week we will start a series of blogs that will closely examine a handful of these specific film markets so that you will get a closer look of the lay of the land to help you determine your next steps.

The topics we’ll blog about include:

• Stretch Film
• Shrink Film
• T-Shirt Bags
• Institutional Trash Bags
• Consumer Trash Bags
• Sheet and Tubing
• Frozen Food Packaging
• Cheese Packaging
• Medical Film Packaging

 

For each of these fill segments we will delve into market size, product specifications, competition from other types of materials, major players in the field, growth projections and more.

 

Next week, we’ll start this series with stretch film.