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PackSummit 2025 Insights: What Are Packaging Automation Trends for 2030

  • Writer: Mikko Arponen
    Mikko Arponen
  • Nov 14
  • 2 min read

The Orfer team recently attended PackSummit in Hämeenlinna, an event that convened 400 dedicated packaging industry professionals. We were there to distill the most critical developments impacting manufacturing and food production leaders like you.


The recurring theme was clear: achieving resilient, sustainable, and cost-efficient operations demands a strategic, integrated approach to packaging and automation.

 

Orfer team attended annual PackSummit to find out the latest trends in the packaging industry and packaging automation.

Understanding these packaging automation trends 2030 is crucial for strategic decision-making. If you couldn't make it, here is our digest of the high-level shifts and operational mandates shaping your near-future decisions.

 

The Sustainability Shift: Rethinking the Package

 

The industry consensus points toward a dramatic overhaul of packaging strategy, driven by both market demands and evolving legislation (like the PPWR). For production leaders, this means preparing for fundamental changes in packaging materials:

 

Image Alt Description A photograph of a Stora Enso presentation slide titled "Applicability & secondary legislation timeline." The slide is pink/purple and displays a timeline spanning from 2025 to 2030 and onwards (2034). The timeline illustrates key upcoming EU legislative and packaging industry trends and milestones related to recyclability, reuse, recycled content, PFAS substances, and harmonisation. Key points on the timeline and their associated years: 2025: PPWR Regulation: Reusable packaging obligation. PPWR PPHD/OEL: Entry into force in February 2025. Minimum recycled plastic content: Obligation establishing the calculation of shared responsibility. Harmonised labelling: Implementing Act establishing labels. 2026: PFAS: Restrictions on substances of concern entering into force. Reuse obligation: Detailed DA regulation on calculation methodology. Harmonised labelling: DA regulation establishing minimum number of labels. 2027: Reuse obligation: Final distributors for refill of food and beverage containers. Restrictions for single-use plastic packaging: Product specific restrictions. Reuse targets: DA guidelines for beverage container deposit systems. 2028: Harmonised labelling: Applicability. Recyclability: DA regulation on criteria and performance grades. Reuse obligation: Final distributors to provide reusable options within a system. Maximum empty space ratio: Commission report and feedback on feedstock to plastic recycling. 2029: Maximum empty space ratio: MSs to set mandatory collection objectives. Recyclability: DA regulation on methodology for recycled at scale assessment. Substances of concern: Consideration/impact of the PFAS restrictions. 2030: Recyclability of packaging: Packaging to be recyclable (comply with A-D grades). Refill & reuse obligation: Final distributors to endeavour to dedicate 10% of display surface to refill stations & 10% of products in reusable packaging. Minimum recycled plastic content in packaging. Packaging minimisation: Max 50% empty space ratio in packaging. Restrictions of specific single-use plastic packaging. Reuse targets. 2034: Review of reuse targets. There is a small image of the speaker in the bottom right corner of the slide. The Stora Enso logo is in the upper corner of the slide.

Circular Plastics & Reuse: The focus is moving beyond simply recycling to enabling genuine circularity and scalable reuse models. This requires systems with the flexibility to handle package returns and new format configurations.

 

Material Simplification: The push for high recyclability is forcing a migration from multi-material constructions to simpler mono-materials and increased paperization.

 

Operational Efficiency as a Green Mandate: Initiatives like rightweighting—reducing material usage per unit—are critical. They achieve both a sustainability goal and a significant reduction in material costs, directly impacting your bottom line.

 

The Automation Imperative: Efficiency as the New Normal

 

A photograph of a presentation slide titled "What will packaging automation look like?" at a conference labeled "PACK SUMMIT".The slide focuses on Packaging machinery growth predictions 2025-2030, presented as a horizontal bar chart comparing predicted growth percentages for 2025 (darker red) and 2030 (lighter red) across different machinery categories. Packaging Machinery Growth Predictions (2025 vs 2030):Machinery Category, 2025, Prediction 2030: Prediction Conveying, feeding & handling 26% growth. Cartoning, multipacking & case packing36% growth. Bagging, pouching & wrapping25% growth. Filling, capping & closing23% Inspection & testing equipment 37%. Palletizing & load stabilization 52%. Coding, labelling, printing & reading equipment16%. Specialty equipment 7%. Tray, clam shell & blister packaging equipment 28%. Key Takeaway Box: A large text box on the right highlights the following:63% of manufacturers contract out between 10-49% of their packaging and 2 in 3 plan to maintain or increase (this percentage).Additional Trends/Focus Areas (Top Right):Three key areas are listed, likely representing major automation trends: Access to machinery or packaging Flexibility in testing, trials & changeover Customization The image captures the speaker (a woman on the right side) and a portion of the audience in the foreground. The presentation screen is centered, set against a backdrop of blue, wave-like wall panels.

Automation is no longer a future-state aspiration; it is the current operational baseline for competitive manufacturing. The data from the summit underscores a dramatic acceleration in machine dependency:

 

Work Task Allocation: By 2030, the proportion of total work tasks delivered by humans is projected to decrease by 19% compared to 2025.


Automation's Role: A staggering 82% of this reduction is attributed to advancing automation and focused machinery investment.

 

Focused Growth Areas in Packaging Automation (2025–2030)

 

Specific areas of the end-of-line process are seeing exponential growth, demanding immediate strategic focus:

 

Palletizing & Load Stabilization: Predicted to grow by a market-leading 52%. This highlights the strategic importance of this bottleneck area for optimizing logistics and ensuring secure supply chains.


Cartoning, Multipacking & Case Packing: Anticipated to grow by 36%. This confirms the urgency of automating the crucial link between primary and secondary packaging.

 

Market Dynamics: Secure Supply and Optimized Cost

 

Beyond the technology, the commercial reality demands operational fortitude:


Supply Chain Security: The focus on Supply Security and securing domestic production means operational resilience and high-uptime machinery are non-negotiable insurance policies.


Enduring Price Sensitivity: Consumer price awareness is permanent. Every opportunity to reduce waste, optimize throughput, and lower material costs must be seized.


Digital Integration: The digital transformation, utilizing AI and data, is the fabric of modern operations, enabling the traceability and real-time decision-making required for peak efficiency.

 

From Orfer’s Perspective: Packaging Automation Trends for 2030

 

The future demands robust, proven, and flexible systems that consistently deliver against these high-level mandates. Whether it’s optimizing logistics with advanced robotic palletizing systems or ensuring precision in secondary packaging machines, the focus must remain on the most reliable path to profitable, sustainable operations.

 

Crucially, reliability extends throughout the system's entire lifespan. Through our comprehensive lifecycle services and 24/7 support.

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