Changes and Challenges Faced by China's Food and Packaging Industry after Entering WTO

With China’s accession to the WTO, all economic activities will be integrated into the world market. The tariffs and non-tariff barriers commonly used by various countries will be greatly weakened. However, the technical requirements and inspection standards for imported products will raise the threshold for each country. The competition for technical quality regulations has become more intense. The global trend of commodity economy will inevitably affect China's imports and exports of food and food packaging technology and its equipment, affect the food consumption patterns and structure of domestic residents, and also affect the circulation and technology of China's commodity packaging.
The foreseeable changes are:
(1) Consumers pay more attention to the quality and safety of products, especially foods, whether they adopt new technologies for food packaging and processing, such as MAP, CAP, aseptic packaging, etc., and pay more attention to packaging materials. The barrier properties.
(2) Pay more attention to the ease of use, ease of use, tamper-evident property (TEP), child safety (CRP) and repeated airtightness of packaging.
(3) Requirements for potential indicators of goods and packaging, such as quality, health, nutrition, safety, ecology, and other indicators of detectability.
(4) It is required to continuously ensure the highest quality of goods, including the technical conditions of sensory indicators. Users pay more attention to whether the packaging technology used is patentable.
(5) With the popularity of Smart Shopping, there is a large increase in fresh food stores (cabinets) that do not have to be prepackaged.
(6) Large Retailers and chain supermarkets will occupy monopoly units. Outside the commercial city, small shops, downtown business halls, daytime shopping markets, and personal service points will gradually shrink.
(7) Introduce product update system more effectively, such as 80% product elimination within 3 months. At the same time, market measures were taken to effectively protect the products that survived within 3 months.
(8) Focusing on the market strategy based on shopping malls, the supply and circulation of commodities are led by retailers rather than by packagers or packaging companies. Study more packaging technologies that are suitable for modern market concepts.
(9) E-commerce and online shopping saved intermediate links in the circulation of goods, reduced unnecessary inventory, and shortened the shelf life waiting for purchase. The logistics process can be remotely monitored, so that the production of goods is more purposeful and diverse, and the packaging, decoration and packaging structure are greatly simplified, but they are more personalized. Therefore, the traditional retail store management mode will be greatly impacted by e-shopping. The rationalization and standardization of products and packaging will change to be more adaptable to e-commerce.
(10) New partnerships between suppliers and users: process transformation and rapid response capabilities (FMS) for packaging production; supply chain management systems; and JIT (real-time) services. Electronic systems such as computer-aided design (CAD), digital image reproduction (DEC), electronic creation (EC), and electronic communications have been greatly enhanced.
(11) Some commodity circulation may use pipeline transportation technology. Its advantages are: continuous transmission, no external environmental impact, small footprint, remote control, and high degree of automation. Bulk products, especially liquid products, will save transportation packaging containers. Consumers are as convenient as tap water and gas.
(12) Home intelligent storage containers will appear in large numbers. Each home can choose to use advanced intelligent storage. The container can automatically set the status to ensure the freshness of the contents within a set time. When shopping, simply enter the contents into your carry-on storage. In doing so, the manufacturer does not need inventory, which greatly reduces the individual consumption of packaging and significantly reduces the generation of packaging waste.
In the coming years, challenges and opportunities will coexist. For the Chinese food industry and the food packaging industry, only by constantly studying and adapting to changes can we calmly meet the challenges and win the victory.