CHICAGO — The last of the Pack Expo International 2026 visitors left the halls of Chicago's McCormick Place Convention Center on Wednesday following a four-day event that host PMMI estimated would bring 45,000 people to discuss the latest trends in packaging and processing technology and innovation.
Various groups held educational sessions to provide updates on the state of the overall industry and its subsectors, as well as highlighting trending topics.
The 10,000-foot view
Dominant industry priorities are productivity, automation, resilience, and flexibility, said PMMI’s Jorge Izquierdo, vice president of market development.
While describing the overall state of the industry, he noted that packaging machinery shipments in the U.S. grew 2.3% in 2025, and PMMI projects this year will be up another 4.5%.
“Workforce enablement is becoming one of the core machinery features,” Izquierdo said. “What packaging or processing operations are looking for: how to enable their operators, how to use data, how to make sure that that data provides you information in the right context so the operators can make decisions based on that.”
Packaging sustainability decisions also are creating implications for equipment and operations. Themes such as lightweighting, increasing PCR use, eliminating secondary packaging and reducing packaging sizes have "kind of a ripple effect for packaging and processing operations," he said.
The challenge for many companies is keeping up with what's next. For instance, companies make equipment investments and optimize machinery to run a certain material, but that material might change due to sustainability decisions. To that end, PMMI developed a Material Transitioning Dashboard to offer insights about which materials companies are altering or eliminating.
While artificial intelligence has been a theme for several years, it's increasingly being added to operations now for specific purposes instead of merely discussed as a novelty.
"By far the number one adoption in AI is with knowledge transfer," Izquierdo said. That could involve, for example, scanning an operating or service manual into a conversational AI powered by a large language model, such as ChatGPT. Or it could be an operator wearing a body camera that documents everything the person says and does throughout the day, with the recording then being used by trainees.
"You're going to notice that a big part of the improvements on the equipment is in that area: how to improve the training, the knowledge transfer, and how to enable the operators," he said. "The use of AI in machine vision is not new, but the level of sophistication is there. It's becoming much more accessible."
Predictive maintenance is another growth area for AI. So is compliance support and data transparency.
"When you're talking about sanitation, collecting all that data is cumbersome. When you're talking about extended producer responsibility, collecting all that data and feeding it into the system is significant," Izquierdo said. "So compliance is very important."
Toxics top of mind amid MAHA movement
While the Pack Expo trade show floor spotlights technology, industry leaders made sure to recap the recycling and materials policy landscape that’s framing it all. One rising issue that presenters from Ameripen and the Flexible Packaging Association both highlighted is chemicals of concern or toxics in packaging
For years now, the industry has been tasked with removing PFAS. But today — particularly in the last 18 months — the types of chemicals under scrutiny go beyond those “forever chemicals” and coincide with the Make America Healthy Again movement initiated by the Trump administration.
“I don't necessarily put that as a political initiative. It's a groundswell initiative, as well, from others who are concerned about what's coming into their food, and now subsequently what's coming into packaging as well,” said FPA CEO Dan Felton.
Previewing data from FPA’s soon-to-be-released annual state of the industry report, Felton showed that reducing chemicals of concern scored highest on “importance in three years” among a range of possible material and sustainability priorities.
FPA noted an emerging pattern of states seeking to restrict certain chemicals. Federal activity related to how these chemicals are regulated under the FDA’s Generally Recognized As Safe, or GRAS, pathway has also ramped up.
“We're sort of moving into a new level of requirements and focus on other chemicals, additives, microplastics” as well as environmental and public health issues, Felton said.
Ameripen similarly noted the trend of more questions arising about the chemicals that are used in packaging. "As a result, we start to see more states trying to pass laws specifically banning different materials, different chemicals, sometimes different formats,” said Ameripen President Lynn Dyer.
Taking lessons from the PFAS transition, Dyer advised that businesses pay attention to chemicals of concern to guide R&D and manage costs. “Because something works so well, trying to find an alternative can be challenging,” she said.
“Think about what are the next chemicals that people are going to be banning, and how do you find replacements for it? How do you start working with your material suppliers to make sure that you have some sort of an alternative?” she added.
Dyer and Felton also discussed EPR, recycled content, labeling and other major state policy topics. Felton noted most of the packaging legislation activity is happening at the state level instead of the federal level, but both speakers also discussed the scant packaging legislation that is progressing in the U.S. Congress.
The federal labeling bill, known as the Pack Act, has advanced through certain House committees but is awaiting a champion in the Senate, Dyer said. And if the House flips to Democratic control during the midterm elections, keep an ear open for more conversations on potential federal EPR when the new session of Congress begins next year, Felton noted.
