Wooden packaging (2020)

The shadows of the pandemic on the sector: lackluster 2020 results, with very few exceptions.

Barbara Iascone
Istituto Italiano Imballaggio

Industrial packaging, crates, pallets and corks: these are the categories belonging to the wood packaging sector, mainly used as transport packaging, where pallets and industrial packaging are the most representative of the sector in terms of quantity and turnover.

Within the whole Italian packaging industry, wood packaging represents about 16% of the total in terms of tons produced and about 5% in terms of turnover.

Sector data by type

In 2020, the negative trend recorded by the manufacturing industry could not but have repercussions also on wood packaging. In fact, production fell by more than 18% to 2,493 t/000 compared to 2,734 in 2019.

Exports fell by about 5% while imports by over 9%, confirming a significantly negative trend in relation to apparent consumption (-9.6%).

It should be noted that the sector mainly serves the domestic market, therefore, foreign trade plays a marginal role on the production trend.

Turnover also fell (down 3%), standing at 1,561 million euros compared with 1,609 million euros in the previous year.

Pallet

74% of production is represented by pallets, which, in 2020, fell by 9.5%, mainly due to the prolonged blockage of goods handling during the weeks of strict lockdown.

Analyzing the outlet sectors (Istituto Italiano Imballaggio database), and confirming the trend of Italian manufacturing, in 2020 the share of pallets destined to the food sector grows to 47.7%, of which 21.4% for beverages and liquids and 26.3% for food.

Chemical products absorb 3.7% of pallet production in Italy, while the remaining 26.8% is destined for the “other non-food” sector.

Industrial packaging

There was also a negative trend for industrial packaging, with production down 6.9% (446,000 tons), exports down 3.2% and imports down 9.6%.

Crates

The production of fruit and vegetable crates continued to fall (-8%, with 166 tons/000).

Corks

Wooden packaging also includes cork stoppers which, despite their limited market share, have continued to grow over the last three years.

According to Assoimballaggi data, the sector boasts 600 companies in the territory and a production of 300 million euros, essentially stable compared to 2019 (-0.6%) despite the conspicuous contraction of the wine and sparkling wine sector following the pandemic (blocking catering, events and ceremonies).

90% of production is destined for the domestic market, while the remaining 10% is absorbed by exports, with China in the lead followed by France and the United States.

Raw material quotations

In 2020, the average prices of raw materials monitored at the Milan Chamber of Commerce, showed a tendentially stable trend throughout the year, however, hinting at growth dynamics in the last two months, then confirmed upward in 2021.