Paper & Plastic Packaging Products & Materials Data Provider · Head-to-head
Flexible Packaging Association (FPA) industry data & buyer's guide vs NAPCOR PET packaging recycling & market data
Which paper & plastic packaging products & materials data provider data fits your job: Flexible Packaging Association industry data & buyer's guide, or NAPCOR PET packaging recycling & market data. API, files, or your warehouse. Daily, weekly, or hourly.
Flexible Packaging Association (FPA) industry data & buyer's guide
NAPCOR PET packaging recycling & market data
Where the fields line up
No shared field names. These two answer different questions.
| Field | Flexible Packaging Association industry data & buyer's guide | NAPCOR PET packaging recycling & market data |
|---|---|---|
Direct economic impact of US flexible packaging (USD) | documented | not in this set |
Total economic contribution of US flexible packaging (USD) | documented | not in this set |
Jobs supported by the flexible packaging industry | documented | not in this set |
FPA member company name | documented | not in this set |
Membership classification (Converter, Associate, International Converter, Supporting) | documented | not in this set |
State or province of member company listing | documented | not in this set |
End-use segment (retail food/non-food, institutional, industrial, medical/pharma, consumer products) | documented | not in this set |
US PET bottle collection rate (%) | not in this set | documented |
US-plus-Canada PET bottle collection rate (%) | not in this set | documented |
Average post-consumer recycled content in US bottles (%) | not in this set | documented |
rPET end-use share by market | not in this set | documented |
PET thermoform recovery volume | not in this set | documented |
Coverage, side by side
| Flexible Packaging Association industry data & buyer's guide | NAPCOR PET packaging recycling & market data | |
|---|---|---|
| Granularity | Industry aggregates + member companies | One resin, measured nationally |
What each contains
They tie on 1 attribute. Pick by fit, not by loyalty.
| Flexible Packaging Association industry data & buyer's guide | NAPCOR PET packaging recycling & market data | |
|---|---|---|
| Unit of analysis | Industry aggregates + member companies | One resin, measured nationally |
| Strongest asset | Converter-level Buyer's Guide directory (2026 PDF edition) | 30th-annual PET Recycling Report series with verified metrics |
| Headline figure | $51.5B direct impact, >$151B total, ~400,000 jobs (2025 study) | 30.2% US bottle collection, 15.9% recycled content (2024) |
| Evidence standard | Inferred field definitions; deep report not publicly inspectable | Verified field definitions; independently peer-reviewed LCA |
| Formats | HTML, PDF | |
| Delivery | Delivered once a year. | Delivered once a year. |
| Best-fit persona | Sales & Growth Teams; Market Researchers (relevance 3) | Market Researchers (relevance 3); Investors & Quant Researchers |
| Use-case clusters | Market Sizing (367 datasets); Supply Chain Mapping (50) | Market Sizing (367); Citation Grade Research (765) |
What each does better
FPA industry data
Sales teams working a target list and competitive-intel teams mapping who converts which film format start here; NAPCOR publishes no company roster at all.
The industry's headline economics in one place. $51.5 billion direct economic impact, over $151 billion total contribution and nearly 400,000 jobs supported, from the 2025 study conducted with John Dunham & Associates and mapped to states and congressional districts - the numbers a market-sizing deck or an investor memo cites first when describing flexible packaging, described as the second largest US packaging segment.
Segment depth behind the aggregates. The State of the Industry report cuts the segment into five end-use markets - retail food and non-food, institutional food and non-food, industrial, medical/pharmaceutical, consumer products - and covers growth, M&A activity, US-versus-global positioning, imports and exports, and expense breakdowns, territory no PET-container report enters.
Ongoing monitoring between editions. The Flexible Packaging Market Tracker provides continuous market monitoring, where NAPCOR's cadence is one report cycle per year.
NAPCOR PET recycling market data
That yields a decade-plus time series for collection rates, something FPA's single-year economic snapshot cannot express.
Numbers you can verify before committing. Four headline metrics print in public infographics: 30.2% US bottle collection in 2024 against 32.5% in 2023, a ten-year average of 29.5%, 39.2% across North America - above 30% every year since tracking began in 2019 - and 15.9% average recycled content in US bottles versus a prior three-year average of 13.7%. FPA's deepest tables have never been publicly inspectable.
An evidence standard the other shelf lacks. The PET Life Cycle Assessment Report 2023, produced with Franklin Associates and independently peer reviewed, compares PET bottles against aluminum cans and glass across energy, greenhouse gas, water, acidification, smog and eutrophication categories, finding PET lowest in most. Sustainability claims built on it survive scrutiny; an association economic-impact figure does not carry equivalent methodological documentation.
Operational infrastructure data. Revised model bale specifications for MRFs and intermediate processors, plus the Thermoform Market Analysis tracking thermoform production, recycling and recycled content in the US and Canada - the first standalone edition and fifth annual - give recyclers and reclaimed-resin buyers specifications, not just statistics.
Where they're equivalent
More than their subject matter implies.
- Both are trade-association compilations, not vendor products: FPA based in Annapolis, MD, speaking for flexible packaging; NAPCOR speaking for the PET container. Each is also the only source of its kind in this 19-dataset slice - no other record covers flexible packaging or PET-specifically.
- Both update annually, like 345 of the cataloged records, on edition-year clocks: FPA's SOI report 2025, economic study 2025, Buyer's Guide 2026 edition; NAPCOR's 2024-data report published December 2025.
- Both score 7/10, below the 7.81 catalog average and below the slice's seven 9-scoring records (Eurostat env_waspac, FDA FCN Inventory, EPA material-specific pages among them).
- Neither bridges to the other - no shared key links a converter's directory listing to the fate of the resin it forms.
The verdict
Verdict: sample both, pick by fit. They describe different halves of one packaging economy, so the question you are asking picks the instrument.
Take FPA if your unit is the segment or the supplier. Market researchers sizing US flexible packaging top-down get the $51.5 billion direct / $151 billion total / ~400,000 job anchors plus the SOI report's end-use expense breakdowns. Sales & growth teams work the Buyer's Guide 2026 PDF as a target list of converters and suppliers - the persona's highest-relevance use at level 3. Investors anchor flexible-packaging diligence on the same impact figures. In Datadory's persona scoring, FPA rates relevance 3 for market researchers and sales teams, 2 for investors, competitive-intel and e-commerce operators, 1 for data scientists.
Take NAPCOR if your unit is the resin and its circularity. Market researchers size North American PET packaging and recycling from the rate reports and Thermoform Market Analysis (relevance 3). Investors track US/Canada collection rates and rPET end-use shares for recycled-resin plays. Competitive-intel teams test sustainability claims against the peer-reviewed LCA; journalists cite the 30th annual edition. E-commerce operators validate rPET content claims before printing them on packaging.
If the deliverable spans both - say, a packaging-sustainability brief naming suppliers and quantifying end-of-life - neither substitutes for the other, which is why both sit in the same market-sizing cluster of 367 cataloged datasets.
Sample both, pick by fit. See Flexible Packaging Association industry data & buyer's guide · See NAPCOR PET packaging recycling & market data
Fair questions
Is FPA industry data better than NAPCOR PET packaging recycling & market data?
Better for different units of analysis. FPA answers segment-and-supplier questions about US flexible packaging - $51.5 billion direct impact, nearly 400,000 jobs, a converter-level Buyer's Guide and the State of the Industry report's five end-use segments. NAPCOR answers resin-circularity questions about PET - 30.2% US bottle collection in 2024, 39.2% across North America, 15.9% recycled content. Both score 7/10.
Do the two field dictionaries overlap?
Only structurally. Each carries five documented fields, and the single shared concept is a geographic or membership partition: FPA filters listings by Member Type and State/Province, NAPCOR splits every rate into US-only and US-plus-Canada versions. Beyond that, FPA measures dollars and jobs while NAPCOR measures percentages and tonnages.
Which dataset reaches further back in time?
NAPCOR, clearly. Its Recycling Report series is on its 30th annual edition, with eleven reports from 2010 through 2020 directly archived and a ten-year collection-rate average (29.5%) computable. FPA's assets are edition-year snapshots - the 2025 SOI report, the 2025 economic impact study, the 2026 Buyer's Guide - with no comparable historical run.
Can I join FPA records to NAPCOR records?
Not row by row - no shared identifier links a directory company to a recycling statistic. Combine them analytically instead: frame the segment with FPA's impact figures and converter list, then apply NAPCOR's collection rates, recycled-content averages and LCA findings as the end-of-life context those suppliers operate in. Any per-company reconciliation is constructed, not sourced.
Which one should a packaging procurement team sample first?
Start with FPA's Buyer's Guide to build the supplier longlist by Member Type and State/Province, since sourcing decisions need named companies. Then sample NAPCOR to arm the evaluation - the 2023 peer-reviewed LCA tests resin claims and the bale specifications govern what recovered material can be promised back. One gives you who to call; the other tells you what to ask for.
Can Datadory deliver both datasets together?
Yes - sample both, pick by fit, or take both in one feed. Each arrives normalized to its documented field dictionary with sample rows attached for validation, on the delivery schedule your team sets, alongside the rest of the paper & plastic packaging products & materials catalog.