The food and beverages industry is growing at a considerable rate across the globe because of the surging population. Other than that, the rising demand for organic and nutritious food products because of the growing adoption of healthier lifestyles is positively affecting the growth of the market. The food & beverages market is projected to attain a revenue of about $9471.66 billion by 2022, witnessing a CAGR of 8.9% during the forecast period. Furthermore, the demand for packaged food products has also grown substantially over the past few years, particularly in emerging economies, due to the rising disposable income of people.
Attributed to this, the requirement for ultraviolet (UV) metallized caps & closures in the food & beverages industry is increasing as well. These products are used in packaging applications for maintaining the safety of products and providing an aesthetic appeal to the packaging. UV metallization is done of plastic products for lending them a metallic finish. The metallization of plastic caps & closures is done by physical vapor deposition sputtering and UV curable coat is applied on them for protecting the metallized layer and hiding imperfections on the surface of plastic caps and closures during the production process.
Alloy and aluminium are majorly used as metallizing materials, between which, aluminium been in use more in the past. This is because of its different benefits such as lightweight, low cost, corrosion resistance, and glossiness similar to silver. The plastic types upon which UV metallization is done include acrylonitrile butadiene styrene (ABS) and polypropylene. Owing to advantages such as high flexural strength, low cost, high thermal resistance, and chemical resistance against cosmetic and food ingredient, polypropylene is used for packaging applications. Ascribed to this the larger demand for UV metallization was created for polypropylene.
In the past, Europe emerged as the largest UV metallized caps & closures market, which is due to the rise in production capacity and production cost optimization by manufacturers by low cost raw material outsourcing. The demand for these caps and closures is rising from countries including Hungary, Czech Republic, Slovakia, and Poland. Apart from this, the demand for UV metallized caps & closures is also predicted to increase significantly from the Asia-Pacific region in the coming years. This is ascribed to the rising growth in consumer spending on food & beverages and cosmetics in Asian countries.
In conclusion, the requirement for UV metallized caps & closures is growing due to the expansion of the food & beverages industry.
