Heidelberg has released a White Paper based on facts and figures relating to the development of the packaging market, forecasting annual global packaging sales to grow by 22 per cent from their base of €517bn in 2010 to approximately €630bn in 2016.

It says the packaging market in western industrialised nations are benefiting from greater variety and increasing competition at the point of sale, and that paper and board packaging are accounting for the largest share of the packaging industry.

The paper says the growth in demand for packaging in developing countries and emerging markets is due to increasing prosperity and growing population figures.

Since 2005, global folding carton production has grown by around 2.5 per cent per year the report says and this trend will continue to grow as Heidelberg is focusing on this segment with its solutions for producing folding cartons.

The paper says that around 250 peak performance XL presses worldwide in the 70 x 100cm format are being used by packaging printing companies as maximum production efficiency is high on the want list in the packaging industry.

Heidelberg says the trend is no longer exclusively toward shorter runs and believes it is vital to use the optimum run length for each job to ensure more efficient and cost-effective production that will meet the growing demand from producers of branded goods for ECR (Efficient Consumer Response) and JIT (Just-in-Time) production concepts.

Because of this it says, even more automated quality and efficiency control processes will therefore be necessary in the near future - something that will only be possible by integrating the appropriate technology in equipment and the workflow. Heidelberg says packaging manufacturers will need to be able to develop ECR and JIT concepts for their customers to boost efficiency through even leaner processes. It is also promoting its own end to end solutions.