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"It finally feels like a normal trade fair again!" was the sentiment of exhibitors and visitors at FACHPACK, which is closing its doors after three successful days. Around 32,000 trade show visitors, one in three of them from abroad, took the opportunity to find out about the latest trends and innovations at the stands of the 1,154 exhibitors and to discuss pressing packaging issues with experts. This year's keynote theme, "Transition In Packaging," struck a chord. "Even though the overall situation is not easy for many companies at the moment, the European packaging industry showed itself to be extremely innovative and solution-oriented at FACHPACK," sums up Heike Slotta, Executive Director Exhibitions, NürnbergMesse.

FACHPACK offered a comprehensive range of products along the packaging process chain: from packaging materials and packaging machines to packaging printing and finishing, as well as logistics systems and services. FACHPACK visitors traveled from 89, predominantly European, countries. After Germany, they came to Nuremberg mainly from Austria, Italy, Poland, Switzerland, the Netherlands, the Czech Republic, France, Turkey and Slovenia. The international share rose to around 32% (2021: 29%).

Over 90 % of the trade visitors were (very) satisfied with the range of products and services on display in the exhibition halls, as shown by the results of a visitor survey conducted by an independent institute. 85 % of the trade show visitors said they were involved in purchasing and procurement decisions at their company. More than half have a managerial position. Visitors came mainly from the food, beverage, pharmaceutical and medical, cosmetics, chemical, electronics, automotive, retail, packaging and logistics sectors.

Packaging manufacturers were able to increase production and sales in 2021. This is shown by current figures from the GADV. In terms of production volume, packaging made of paper, cardboard and paperboard accounted for the largest share, while packaging made of plastic achieved the highest production value.

In 2021, around 19.6 million tons of packaging materials were produced, which means that the production volume increased by 4.8%. The production value also increased significantly by 10.9% and amounted to around 35.8 billion Euros in 2021. As in previous years, plastic packaging generated the largest share of production value with a share of around 44%. In terms of volume, packaging made of paper, cardboard and paperboard was the largest packaging material fraction with around 49%.

The packaging machinery sector, which is a strong exporter, is also currently being held back by production-related and global economic disruptions and crises. Due to the export volume achieved in the first half of the year combined with a good order backlog, a low increase in production is nevertheless expected for 2022. According to the VDMA Food Processing and Packaging Machinery Association, the production volume for packaging machinery increased by 4.6 % to 7 billion Euros in 2021.

Exports by the approximately 300 manufacturers increased to 5.922 billion Euros in 2021 (previous year: 5.673 billion Euros), only slightly below the highest volume ever achieved before the Covid pandemic. The export value corresponds to 84% of the production volume. The strongest customers for German packaging machinery are traditionally EU countries, ahead of North America and Asia. Grouped by customer country, the USA is far ahead of China, France and Poland. Worldwide foreign trade in packaging machinery totals almost 22 billion Euros; here, the highly innovative German sector has for years occupied the leading position with a share of around 26%, ahead of Italy.