The pandemic shifted how consumers get meals, order items and more, in turn influencing packaging. Some changes in manufacturing have stuck, from automating some tasks to adapting supply management.

Five years ago this week, the World Health Organization classified COVID-19 as a pandemic and the U.S. declared a public health emergency. The packaging industry, like others, experienced a wide range of changes.

“COVID-19 accelerated a lot of trends that were already in progress at the time,” said Jennifer Christ, manager of consumer and commercial goods research at The Freedonia Group.

In 2020 and the years that followed, the pandemic changed much of life — and business operations — as people knew it. Customer inventory fluctuations impacted packaging sales for many quarters. Today, some of the impacts of operational changes and consumer trends still have a mark in manufacturing and packaging formats themselves.

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