There is potential in moulded fibre, but is it being limited by machinery producers?
As regulations and brand owners are starting to phase out single-use plastic packaging products, moulded fibre demand is expected to grow strongly until 2030.
However, the strong growth of these products comes with challenges in capacity increments, especially for moulded fibre machinery providers/manufacturers.
Machines for moulded fibre production have some significant disadvantages compared to similar machines for plastic products. Achieving complex geometries for certain products is challenging with traditional fibre moulding technologies, and not everything is possible with the current technologies. Additionally, plastic machines produce output that is 8-10 times greater than traditional moulded fibre thermoforming machinery. Consequently, it takes 8-10 moulded fibre machines to match the output of a single plastic thermoforming machine.
The increase in moulded fibre demand and ratio in output compared to plastics means that at least 2000 new moulded fibre machines need to enter the market by 2030, an increase of 60% from the current number of machines globally. As the majority of the machinery providers currently sell a small number of machines yearly, machinery supply could emerge as a key bottleneck. Due to increasing demand for these products, lead times have already increased from 6 to 12 months in the past few years.
The obvious solution would be to increase the output of the individual lines. Machinery providers are working to improve their technologies, and their focus has started to shift towards higher output in volumes. In this area, especially the new dry moulding technology can be seen as offering output on par with plastic production, although with limitations in product flexibility. At the same time, the R&D focus has to provide solutions to the upcoming PFAS challenges as well as offer additional barriers and more complex geometries.
For producers who are shifting their production from plastic to moulded fibre products, it is essential that the technical aspects of the moulded fibre machines are as close to plastics as possible to avoid additional warehouse costs. For machinery providers to meet demand expectations, investments in production facilities and increased R&D spending are necessary.
There is also room for additional companies in the machinery market. Recently, some of the larger traditional pulp and paper machinery producers have started to look into the moulded fibre segment, and it will be interesting to see how much the machines can improve in the coming years as there is no one-solution-fits-all in the moulded fibre machinery market.
To meet the demand for moulded fibre products, machinery providers need to be able to increase their machine production capacity and reduce lead times, necessitating further investments in production facilities and personnel. Despite more companies entering the machinery market in recent years, their output remains consistent across the board, though costs vary significantly.
