Japan’s packaging industry and their brand owner customer – the FMCG (fast moving consumer goods manufacturer) – are being forced to dramatically change their formats, portion sizes and deploy new technologies such as light-weighting and downsizing their product offerings in order to secure a place on the retail shelves of the world’s second largest consumer market.

According to Stuart Hoggard, author of "Zen & the Technology of Packaging in Japan," a new market trends report from Singapore-based Asian packaging publisher EP Resources Pte Ltd, this has to do with the evolving retail landscape in the country that has changed consumer shopping patterns.