Shifts in Food Packaging: 4 Trends Shaping Thermoforming in 2026

Thermoforming continues to play a major role in food packaging, particularly for products such as sliced cheese, deli meats, seafood, ready meals and plant-based foods. However, packaging lines are undergoing significant changes as manufacturers respond to tighter regulations, material innovation, rising costs, labor shortages and increasing expectations around food safety and recyclability.

1. Packaging is becoming more sustainable

GEA identifies a shift away from traditional multilayer structures toward mono-materials, thinner films and hybrid packaging formats that can reduce material use while maintaining the barrier properties needed to protect food.

Manufacturers are increasingly evaluating recyclable PET and polypropylene structures, fiber-based trays and paper-plastic combinations. This means packaging equipment must become more flexible and capable of processing different generations of materials as regulations and market requirements evolve.

2. Efficiency is about more than production speed

Packaging performance is no longer measured simply by packs per minute. Energy consumption, material waste, labor requirements and changeover times are becoming equally important.

GEA highlights technologies such as improved heating control, insulation, film-saving features and more efficient changeover mechanisms as ways manufacturers can reduce waste and energy consumption while maintaining throughput.

3. Food safety and shelf life remain critical

For chilled products such as seafood, meat, cheese and alternative proteins, packaging directly influences product shelf life and quality.

Modified-atmosphere packaging depends on factors including gas distribution, sealing quality and residual oxygen. GEA highlights newer evacuation and gassing technologies that provide tighter process control. In one extended production trial involving 25,000 packs, the proportion of MAP packs achieving residual oxygen of 0.2% or less increased from approximately six in ten to almost nine in ten. Seal-related rejects also fell substantially during the test.

4. Automation and data are becoming essential

Food manufacturers are increasingly connecting packaging equipment to plant networks and cloud platforms to monitor availability, speed, quality and downtime.

GEA notes that digital tools can provide greater visibility into equipment performance while remote access allows service specialists to support production teams without always travelling to the plant.

The broader trend is toward packaging lines that are not only faster, but also more flexible, connected, resource-efficient and capable of supporting future materials and regulatory requirements.