Bearing this in mind a new market report from the Freedonia Group, entitiled High Visibility Packaging, expects that sales should increase by around 5.1 per cent annually to reach $8.5bn by 2010.
This represents a total of 32 billion units produced each year, amounting to 900 million pounds of resin.
The majority of high visibility packaging is made up of clamshell packaging, which is largely used by the food industry, but also increasingly used in cosmetic baskets and multi-product packs, as well as blister packs for pharmaceutical, cosmeceutical and nutraceutical products.
The report finds that gains in these two segments will be favored by advances in consumer spending, along with the growing influence of mass market retailers who are increasingly favoring these types of packaging.
Clamshell packaging is said to be particularly beneficial for upscale goods, helping to display them in an attractive way, while enhancing their tamper proofing.
Meanwhile blister packs also help to increase consumer security, while also providing effective means of helping individuals to take the correct dose for products.
Currently carded blister packs and clamshell packages are estimated to account for approximately 58 per cent of all high visibility packaging.
Looking at the other aspects of the market, Freedonia says that windowed packaging, which is widely used in a range of beauty care packaging, is likely to see below average growth in the coming years as demand drops on the back of higher production costs.