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Packagers Stay the COVID-19 Course

Packaging pros adjusted fast to the ‘new normal’ of a pandemic, and have been maintaining for months now, a new Packaging World survey reveals. Three months on from our first survey, we see improvements in CAPEX freedom and a reduction in hiring freezes.

Covid19 Getty Images 1205740031 5eb02f3fd8674

Packaging World first surveyed its readership about their immediate reaction to the pandemic, as relates to packaging, in late March 2020. Answers were thus collected just as COVID-19 began to impact CPGs, mainly via safety-based consumer behavior changes, restrictions to foodservice rocking the omnichannel, new in-plant health regulations, and destabilization in the supply chains that support CPGs. Responses came in just as a ripple of uncertainty spread across logistics and supply chains. Meanwhile, the omnichannel shifted from the pre-COVID status quo mix of retail, foodservice, institutional, and e-comm channels that got packaged products to consumers, to a ‘new normal.’ It remains to be seen how permanent the emerging omnichannel landscape will be. What’s your biggest COVID-19 worry, now that it’s June?What’s your biggest COVID-19 worry, now that it’s June?

Three months later, in June 2020, we asked our readers the same questions again to see if attitudes or strategies have changed as we settle into the pandemic world. Note, these aren’t the same respondents, so it’s not a direct, 1::1 comparison of the same people asked twice. Instead, it’s a look at any change in sentiment in view of a new set of responses.

I personally was anticipating big shifts since the velocity of change between March and June, in my consumer experience, seems to have accelerated. But in fact, packaging professionals responding in March were both ahead of the game, and prescient about what the future held for their industry back then. By late March 2020, during the first survey, CPG respondents were already a pretty long way down their path toward the existing landscape, and June’s responses often mirror March’s.

Supply chain disruption flat, but lead times grow.Supply chain disruption flat, but lead times grow.Same factors keeping CPGs awake at night
Just as it was in March, health and safety is the biggest factor on the minds of respondents as their primary COVID-19 challenge. Of all respondents, 23% point to some factors of health and safety as the major challenge. Special concerns within this category include difficulty social distancing in a plant setting (16%), worker compliance to safety protocols (5%), and a lack or shortage of necessary PPE for employees (5%). 

A significant portion of people also are concerned about meeting demand (18%). Considering most respondents are in food and beverage, and consumers continue to eat at a similar clip to pre-COVID levels, this means that downstream supply chain issues that hinder keeping up with demand—like upstream supply chain disruptions—continue to be a sore point. Said one respondent,

“Packaging demand mix changes are making it difficult to keep up with demand.” And another, “We’re essentially changing from a foodservice provider to a retail provider.”

Finally, workforce struggles with absenteeism and disrupted engagement continue to bother respondents. Said one,

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