Development history of the packaging machinery industry

Food, daily necessities, and even large household items require packaging. Packaging has become a trend, and the packaging machinery industry has flourished as a result. In the food industry, in particular, a wide variety of packaging equipment is constantly emerging. From printing and packaging to microcomputer combination weighers and finished product packaging for sale, innovations at every stage bring new changes to the food packaging industry.
As 2012 draws to a close, what will the packaging machinery industry face in 2013? With the international community's increasing demands on the food packaging industry, competition is intensifying. Behind the prosperity of the domestic and international packaging machinery markets, there are market battles unfolding.

The Current State of the Food Packaging Machinery Industry: Domestic vs. International
It is well known that China has a large number of food machinery enterprises, but they are small in scale and low in technology content. Only about 5% of domestic food packaging machinery enterprises have the production capacity for complete packaging systems and can compete with international companies such as those in Japan, Germany, and Italy. Most small-scale food enterprises can only rely on imported packaging machinery equipment. According to relevant data, in 2010, China mainly imported food and packaging machinery from Europe. The import value of packaging machinery was US$2.098 billion, accounting for 70.71% of the total packaging machinery value, a year-on-year increase of 40.94%. This shows the huge demand for packaging machinery in China. However, due to the inability of domestic packaging machinery technology to meet the needs of food enterprises, the import volume of domestic packaging machinery equipment continues to increase.
Europe and the United States, leveraging their strong economic and technological advantages, exert enormous pressure on China's food packaging machinery enterprises. For example, Wells’ Dairy in Le Mars, Iowa, USA, is a highly automated dairy processing enterprise. It collaborated with Kuka Robotics to develop a palletizing robot that maintains reliable operation even in extremely cold environments. This robot significantly ensures product quality and packaging speed. In the packaging machinery industry, it is considered a unique new technology and a key tool for the company's globalization strategy.

The Future of the Food Packaging Machinery Industry: Opportunities and Challenges
The food machinery industry is a sunrise industry with enormous development potential. China is hailed as the future large-scale "factory" for food processing. According to relevant data, China currently produces 1.2 million tons of canned fruit annually, with about 600,000 tons exported overseas, accounting for about 1/6 of the global market. In addition to hard social needs, the Chinese government is adopting encouraging measures to vigorously promote the transformation of food machinery enterprises towards industrialization, informatization, and marketization, helping enterprises overcome financial and technological difficulties.
Visiongain, a well-known international research institution, has also boldly predicted, through its investigation of the development trends and trajectories of major global food and beverage packaging companies in recent years, that the global food and beverage packaging market will be worth US$11.7 billion in 2011. It also predicts that packaging machinery will undergo revolutionary changes in the next ten years, which will bring new opportunities to the food and beverage packaging industry.
The development path of packaging machinery is not always smooth; it will face greater challenges. In China, the food industry is relatively fragmented, with many small workshops. According to statistics, China has 450,000 food production enterprises, of which 80% are small workshops with fewer than 10 employees. Due to the small scale of enterprises and lack of funds, mechanized production is difficult to apply, which poses a certain obstacle to the development of China's food machinery.
The packaging machinery industry in China will still have a relatively long period of development. Many packaging companies are targeting foreign markets, but foreign market competition is even more intense. Germany, Italy, and Japan have formed a "iron triangle" in the packaging machinery industry. Their technological level has an overwhelming advantage over Chinese packaging machinery enterprises. Only a very small number of Chinese enterprises can stand on the international stage. Guangdong Haichuan is one of the excellent multinational enterprises, with products exported worldwide. Senior microcomputer combination weigher research expert, Engineer Xiao, said that the development path of Chinese packaging machinery enterprises is still long. Along this long road, various challenges will inevitably be encountered. With the support of the government, actively learning from advanced foreign experience while strengthening independent research and development, progress can be achieved.


The Way Forward for the Food Packaging Machinery Industry: Technology and Energy Saving
Science and technology are the lifeblood and driving force of enterprises. The automatic control system of packaging machinery is constantly being improved, making its development trend towards intelligence. For example, the improvement of detection technology can not only display the location of current machine failures but also predict potential failures, allowing operators to check and replace relevant parts in time, effectively avoiding failures. Remote monitoring is also an innovative application of food packaging machinery. Group customers can centrally manage the operation of all machines and achieve remote monitoring, which is a great convenience for enterprises.
Technological innovation in the packaging machinery industry should consider packaging materials in addition to the machines themselves. Environmental protection and energy saving are important issues in the packaging industry, and many countries and social organizations are involved in the technological development of packaging energy saving and environmental protection. Some new environmentally friendly packaging products have also emerged, such as a packaging paper made from carrots developed in the UK, which can be both eaten and used to wrap food; a Japanese research institute has developed an edible packaging paper made from bean dregs that dissolves when heated.
Packaging machinery also excels in saving labor and material costs. It can reduce a production team of approximately 20 to 25 people to 4 to 5 people while simultaneously exceeding the efficiency of manual production.
Therefore, technology and energy saving will become important directions for the future development of the packaging machinery industry.