Markets to explore: United States

May 15, 2016

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The column dedicated to Italian companies operating in the packaging with a keen eye to the possibilities of growth and development abroad is born out of the collaboration between ICE-Agenzia and Edizioni Dativo. The network of ICE offices abroad will provide a regular update on the development of the packaging in the short/medium term in selected countries.

A reminder that Part I of the report on the system of packaging machines for the US market was published in the 04/2016 April issue of ItaliaImballaggio.

With the objective of analysing the performance of the US packaging technology market, the PMMI (Packaging Machinery Manufacturers Institute) has created the PMMI State of the Industry Study, a market research based on a study that crosses US Census Bureau data with data covering shipments of machinery supplied by US packaging technology manufacturers who are also PMMI associates.

The study, which covers the period spanning 2014 and 2019, includes 27 categories of packaging and wrapping machines and aims to describe the trends and prospects of the sector.

At the present time figures show that in 2014, the overall value of the packaging machinery grew by 4.2% on the previous year, reaching a value of 9.41 million dollars. The study has in fact marked an increase of 4.4% in US domestic shipments, a 1.6% growth in exports and an increase of 3.6% in imports (table 1). By contrast, unfulfilled orders by December 31 2014 decreased by 6.4%.
The main sector of destination of the packaging machines is shown to be the food sector. In turn the pharmaceutical sector is showing rapid growth (2.7% growth forecast to 2019), followed by the beverage market (2% growth forecast).

From 2013 to 2014, US sales of packaging machinery increased from 7.1 billion dollars to 7.5 billion dollars and it is expected that they will achieve 8.1 billion dollars in 2019, with a growthrate of +1.6%.

Promoting Made in Italy in the USA

ICE-AGENCY projects and activities

• Extraordinary USA Mechanics Project. ICE-AGENCY activities for the promotion of Italian products in the US market, falls mainly within the Extraordinary USA Mechanics Project and is dedicated to the entire packaging chain, with the respective collaboration of the Italian printing and converting machine manufacturers’ association ACIMGA and the Italian automatic packaging machine manufacturers’ association UCIMA.
The subsequent steps in the program are summarized in the table.

• Social Networking Project. The market monitoring activities are considered crucial to the study of sector economic trends and the subsequent identification of potential US partners.
On this count, with the collaboration with the Italian trade association Acimga, the ICE office in Chicago, via the establishment of a special desk, is working on the creation and management of a LinkedIn profile, in order to establish connections with US professionals active in the field of interest covered by the project.
The decision to use the main social media to map the sector was proposed by Acimga and is due to the desire to create a community comprising all the players of the chain, this within a context up with the times and hence deemed particularly effective. The LinkedIn page will in fact be used not only as a point of contact with the Acimga network, but also as a means for sharing publishing and multimedia materials on the market, as well as advertise promotional activities covering the sector, not to mention collecting feedback.

The project is coordinated ICE-Agenzia headquarters in Rome, by the Industrial Technology, - Energy and Environment office headed by Ferdinando Pastore. Contacts:
Matteo Masini,
tel 06.5992.9356 -
[email protected]