Deloitte Releases Latest Report "China Packaging Industry Trends Insight: Green, Innovation, Digital Intelligence, and Collaboration"
2025-07-30 15:41
As one of the foundational industries supporting the development of the national economy, the importance of China's packaging industry goes without saying. Against the backdrop of continuously rising downstream market demand for packaging in China, the packaging industry will face significant development opportunities and challenges. Deloitte, in collaboration with the China Packaging CEO Club, jointly released the latest report "China Packaging Industry Trends Insight: Green, Innovation, Digital Intelligence, and Collaboration" (hereinafter referred to as the "report"). Through research on representative customers from multiple downstream industries including food, beverages, pharmaceuticals, cosmetics, apparel, and electronics, the report focuses on downstream enterprises' current evaluations and future expectations of packaging materials and equipment, providing decision-makers with precise insights into industry trends and customer needs.
Li Peng, National Managing Partner of Deloitte China's State-owned Enterprises Development Research Center and National Managing Partner of Deloitte China Consulting's Government and Public Services, stated: "The packaging industry holds a pivotal position in China's industrial development. Currently, its market scale is enormous and increasingly showing diversified trends, making the packaging industry a key link in many industrial chains. Facing the current complex economic situation and rapidly evolving technological development, China's packaging industry is standing at a new historical starting point, actively exploring future development directions. Deloitte China will join hands with the Packaging CEO Club to deeply focus on downstream consumer markets, help enterprises maintain competitive advantages in the ever-changing market by promoting innovation, green development, and localization."
Shen Xin, Chairman/President of Amcor Greater China and Chairman of China Packaging CEO Club, stated: "China's packaging industry should integrate more innovative elements while maintaining traditional advantages, adapt to market changes, and meet customers' growing diversified demands. With the promotion of environmental protection policies and changes in market demand, green packaging has become the main direction of industry development; meanwhile, the development of modern technology has also brought unprecedented opportunities to the packaging industry."
Guo Lingfeng, Partner in Strategy, Risk and Transactions at Deloitte China, stated: "Through our research, we found that innovation and digital upgrading are becoming the main driving forces for the development of the packaging industry. Downstream industries have strong demands for material and equipment innovation, expecting to enhance consumer experience and optimize costs through innovation, while simultaneously promoting equipment towards customization and intelligence. The green and environmental protection concept drives the reduction of packaging materials, becoming a core measure to reduce resource consumption. The widespread application of digital technology in packaging equipment helps downstream enterprises achieve more efficient and stable production processes. In addition, foreign brands are deepening cooperation in China, while domestic enterprises' technological upgrading and overseas expansion are gradually becoming new industry trends."
The report shows that the packaging industry exhibits the following four core trends:
I. Innovation is becoming an important engine driving the development of the packaging industry. Respondents believe that downstream customers have high expectations for packaging material innovation, particularly focusing on enhancing product protection, functionality, and cost efficiency through material and technological innovation. Packaging equipment innovation is also developing towards customization, flexibility, and intelligence to meet diversified production needs and enhance industry competitiveness.
II. Green packaging has become the main direction of industry development. With the enhancement of global environmental protection awareness and the promotion of sustainable development policies, various industries in China are accelerating the implementation of low-carbon environmental strategies, and green packaging is gradually becoming one of the important trends in packaging industry development. 80% of respondents believe that enterprises have set clear green environmental goals and are actively promoting them. Meanwhile, the reduction of packaging materials, application of biodegradable materials, and promotion of recycling technologies are helping enterprises reduce resource consumption while achieving economic benefits.
III. Digitalization and intelligence drive industry transformation. The rapid development of digital technology has opened up broad application prospects for digital packaging. In brand promotion and consumer interaction areas, 88% of respondents believe that enterprises can significantly improve production efficiency and product quality by combining digital packaging technology with big data analysis, artificial intelligence, and other technologies. In addition, 80% of respondents believe these technologies have improvements in big data precision marketing, while 56% of respondents believe they contribute to product anti-counterfeiting and traceability queries. Downstream enterprises are increasingly valuing the application of intelligent equipment to respond to market diversification needs and achieve customized intelligent manufacturing.
IV. Equal emphasis on globalization expansion and localization process. Chinese packaging enterprises are actively entering global markets. In this survey, going overseas is one of the hot topics among domestic enterprises, with 87% of surveyed domestic enterprises having already expanded or planning to expand into overseas markets. Especially under the support of the "Belt and Road" initiative, more and more enterprises are choosing to explore international markets through overseas mergers and acquisitions, investment in factory construction, and other methods. Meanwhile, foreign packaging brands are also increasing local R&D and production investment in China, forming deep cooperation with Chinese enterprises. With the improvement of domestic enterprises' technical capabilities, the localization process of China's packaging industry has achieved remarkable results.
Fan Lidong, Vice Chairman of China Packaging CEO Club and former President of SIG Combibloc Greater China (Northern Region), stated: "China's packaging industry is entering a new era of coordinated development of green, innovative, and digital technologies. Deloitte's professional insights will help industry enterprises grasp market trends and assist them in finding new growth points in market positioning and development."
Li Peng, National Managing Partner of Deloitte China's State-owned Enterprises Development Research Center and National Managing Partner of Deloitte China Consulting's Government and Public Services, stated: "The packaging industry holds a pivotal position in China's industrial development. Currently, its market scale is enormous and increasingly showing diversified trends, making the packaging industry a key link in many industrial chains. Facing the current complex economic situation and rapidly evolving technological development, China's packaging industry is standing at a new historical starting point, actively exploring future development directions. Deloitte China will join hands with the Packaging CEO Club to deeply focus on downstream consumer markets, help enterprises maintain competitive advantages in the ever-changing market by promoting innovation, green development, and localization."
Shen Xin, Chairman/President of Amcor Greater China and Chairman of China Packaging CEO Club, stated: "China's packaging industry should integrate more innovative elements while maintaining traditional advantages, adapt to market changes, and meet customers' growing diversified demands. With the promotion of environmental protection policies and changes in market demand, green packaging has become the main direction of industry development; meanwhile, the development of modern technology has also brought unprecedented opportunities to the packaging industry."
Guo Lingfeng, Partner in Strategy, Risk and Transactions at Deloitte China, stated: "Through our research, we found that innovation and digital upgrading are becoming the main driving forces for the development of the packaging industry. Downstream industries have strong demands for material and equipment innovation, expecting to enhance consumer experience and optimize costs through innovation, while simultaneously promoting equipment towards customization and intelligence. The green and environmental protection concept drives the reduction of packaging materials, becoming a core measure to reduce resource consumption. The widespread application of digital technology in packaging equipment helps downstream enterprises achieve more efficient and stable production processes. In addition, foreign brands are deepening cooperation in China, while domestic enterprises' technological upgrading and overseas expansion are gradually becoming new industry trends."
The report shows that the packaging industry exhibits the following four core trends:
I. Innovation is becoming an important engine driving the development of the packaging industry. Respondents believe that downstream customers have high expectations for packaging material innovation, particularly focusing on enhancing product protection, functionality, and cost efficiency through material and technological innovation. Packaging equipment innovation is also developing towards customization, flexibility, and intelligence to meet diversified production needs and enhance industry competitiveness.
II. Green packaging has become the main direction of industry development. With the enhancement of global environmental protection awareness and the promotion of sustainable development policies, various industries in China are accelerating the implementation of low-carbon environmental strategies, and green packaging is gradually becoming one of the important trends in packaging industry development. 80% of respondents believe that enterprises have set clear green environmental goals and are actively promoting them. Meanwhile, the reduction of packaging materials, application of biodegradable materials, and promotion of recycling technologies are helping enterprises reduce resource consumption while achieving economic benefits.
III. Digitalization and intelligence drive industry transformation. The rapid development of digital technology has opened up broad application prospects for digital packaging. In brand promotion and consumer interaction areas, 88% of respondents believe that enterprises can significantly improve production efficiency and product quality by combining digital packaging technology with big data analysis, artificial intelligence, and other technologies. In addition, 80% of respondents believe these technologies have improvements in big data precision marketing, while 56% of respondents believe they contribute to product anti-counterfeiting and traceability queries. Downstream enterprises are increasingly valuing the application of intelligent equipment to respond to market diversification needs and achieve customized intelligent manufacturing.
IV. Equal emphasis on globalization expansion and localization process. Chinese packaging enterprises are actively entering global markets. In this survey, going overseas is one of the hot topics among domestic enterprises, with 87% of surveyed domestic enterprises having already expanded or planning to expand into overseas markets. Especially under the support of the "Belt and Road" initiative, more and more enterprises are choosing to explore international markets through overseas mergers and acquisitions, investment in factory construction, and other methods. Meanwhile, foreign packaging brands are also increasing local R&D and production investment in China, forming deep cooperation with Chinese enterprises. With the improvement of domestic enterprises' technical capabilities, the localization process of China's packaging industry has achieved remarkable results.
Fan Lidong, Vice Chairman of China Packaging CEO Club and former President of SIG Combibloc Greater China (Northern Region), stated: "China's packaging industry is entering a new era of coordinated development of green, innovative, and digital technologies. Deloitte's professional insights will help industry enterprises grasp market trends and assist them in finding new growth points in market positioning and development."