A market research survey was commissioned by The European Paper Sack Research Group, ESG, in order to understand the key influencing and motivating factors behind cement filler preferences that may lead them to switch from paper sack solutions to plastic (ffs) sacks. ESG is a collaboration between the two organizations CEPI Eurokraft and EUROSAC. The members of CEPI Eurokraft are the producers of Kraft and Sack Kraft Paper and the members of EUROSAC are the producers of the Paper Sacks.
Innventia AB, a Swedish research institute, conducted the market research survey.
Critically the questionnaire was designed to avoid bias by determining the key influencing factors for choice of sack system before asking respondents about the strengths of the paper or ffs plastic sack systems.
Completed questionnaires were received from fillers located throughout Europe including Belgium, France, Germany, Italy, Netherlands, Switzerland and the UK. 20 fillers, 2 retailers and one machine manufacturer were approached for their views. In total ten questionnaires were completed by fillers and informal comment was received from one retailer. The questionnaire was designed to extract quantitative responses (rankings) so that some statistical assessment of the results could be applied. For all questions involving ranking, the mean, mode and median has been calculated. The generally strong alignment of the mean, mode and median in the study results shows consistency in the responses and therefore suggests that conclusions can be drawn from the datasets with confidence.
Paper sacks benefit from lower total cost and higher filling speed than polyethylene form fill seal sacks The market research study revealed that paper cement sacks offer considerable cost and efficiency advantages for fillers when compared with polyethylene form-fill-seal (ffs) sacks.
Another key finding of the study was that choice of sack system is considered by the majority of fillers to be of high strategic importance and high spend. Generally companies buying products and services that account for significant spend and that are also strategically important are reluctant to switch to another supplier or system. A switch may take place but only after careful consideration or due to external influences, such as legislation, consumer or customer preferences, or taxation, over which they have little option or control.
