If market share numbers are indicative of trade show attendance, 27,000 packaging machinery buyers from food and beverage companies prowled the aisles at the 2012 PACK EXPO event, and they had the kind of checkbook balances that make equipment fabricators’ eyes water.
“US purchasers of equipment seem to be sitting on a lot of money,” noted Tom Egan, vice president-industry services, Packaging Machinery Manufacturers Institute (PMMI), on PACK EXPO’s opening day. Egan’s optimism was based on PMMI’s 2012 Shipments & Outlook Study, an annual survey of equipment machinery sales. The study describes a supplier segment fueled by double-digit growth in customer orders that obliterates the declines in 2008 and 2009.