Six reasons stick packs have stuck around

The nutrition industry’s move toward portion-controlled, on-the-go formats has fueled a rapid rise in stick pack packaging. Given their precise dosing, low shipping weight, easy opening and strong shelf appeal, stick packs are seen as ideal for powdered supplements, collagen and other proteins, pre- and post-workout boosts like electrolytes, and single-dose vitamin shots. Each of these attributes align with consumer demand for convenience and health-first snacking.

While formal stick pack market assessments vary, all signs point toward healthy, steady growth. Grand View Research valued the global stick pack market at about $461.2 million in 2023, forecasting a 5.4% CAGR to roughly $656.4 million by 2030. Other sources report even more robust figures; for example, Mordor Intelligence, whose analysis comprises a broader definition of stick packs that includes adjacent single-serve formats, projects roughly $1.5 billion in 2025 and growth to nearly $2 billion by 2030. This reflects a CAGR of 5.6%.

The acceleration of stick packs folds into a wider single-serve and nutraceutical packaging boom: the single-serve packaging market was estimated at $10.2 billion in 2024. The overall nutraceuticals packaging market is also expanding, with projected growth from $3.52B in 2024 to $4.66B by 2030. These larger trends feed demand for flexible, portioned delivery formats used by supplement brands and other nutraceutical manufacturers.

This growth is being driven by a confluence of factors, including rising direct-to-consumer supplement sales, e-commerce, and travel lifestyle habits, as well as formulation advances that let fragile actives survive in thin flexible films. Sustainability and material innovation, such as paper-based and sustainability-minded mono-material films, have become key battlegrounds, with brands responding to consumer demands for recyclable or lower-plastic stick options that still provide exemplary barrier performance.

Here are a half-dozen reasons why this simple little package continues to flourish.

Selfie stick: Grab ‘n go convenience and utility of stick packs

Stick packs provide ultimate travel accessibility for just about any demographic, as they fit perfectly into a lunch box, backpack, purse, briefcase, gym bag, or wallet. They are conducive to immediate active consumption, and are easy to pour into a secondary medium, such as a water bottle or food cup.

Additionally, stick packs are easy to manipulate due to their end-seal design, tapered pour spouts, horizontal/corner tear notches and scored perforation—while providing excellent child-resistance. Finally, they lend themselves to inclusion as a component within a larger-finished-product matrix, such as meal kits, and facilitate on-the-go future consumption and in-the-field consumer trial/sampling.

Just right: Quality and portion control

A noteworthy benefit of single-serve stick packs is their ability to promote freshness and extend shelf life. Their single-use dynamic makes them highly efficacious compared with larger packages that are opened and closed multiple times, introducing air, waste and contamination. Many feature multi-laminate film structures that optimize oxygen/moisture barrier properties for maximum product preservation.

Additionally, in keeping with the nutrition industry’s elevated emphasis on portion control, stick packs feature self-explanatory dosages and offer consistency of usage experience. They inherently eliminate confusion around dose variance considerations such as: “too much or too little?”; “shallow or heaping scoop?”; and “light or heavy pour?”

Customization and flexibility of stick packs

Stick packs offer high customization and flexibility along a variety of dimensions. Fill contents can range from dry, particulate powder to liquids, syrups, lotions, and creams. Their size can be tailored to product type, density and pouch size, and they can accommodate an array of net weights via simple modification of dimensions.

Notably, from a manufacturing perspective, stick packs present lower hurdles than most other packaging platforms. Modern stick pack machines can feature, for example, 10 simultaneously filled lanes that produce stick packs spanning widths from less than half an inch to two inches or more, all with differing lengths.

Printing presents another plus, since a typical stick pack footprint provides ample surface area to display differentiating graphics and consumer/point of sale information such as directions, supplement facts, UPC and ingredients. Features such as tear notches and tapered spouts can be utilized to further augment utility, ease of use and differentiation.

Less is more: Sustainability

Larger pouch platforms and the push for considerably less packaging material utilization translate to a smaller amount of film, making stick packs less cumbersome and costly. Stick packs’ consistent dosage yields less waste, and their smaller footprint results in more favorable transport economics compared with larger and heavier pouches and bottles that often necessitate bulky secondary packaging. Finally, stick packs require a smaller upfront investment that encourages consumer trial and impulse purchases, helping prevent prohibitively expensive and potentially wasteful investment in larger pack sizes that can end up disliked and discarded.

Stick figures: The economics of stick pack manufacturing

Stick packs generally facilitate more favorable economics than bottles and traditional pouches. With automation, for example, they offer quite a high throughput, with average rates in the 40 packs per minute range. On a 10-lane line, that translates into 400 pouches per minute and up, depending on pouch configuration.

From a printing perspective, inline date coding makes for safe, efficient product expiry information. Vertical integration is another point of streamlining, as inline forming, filling and sealing from flat roll stock film provides greater efficiency than secondary filling from premade packaging alternatives.

Consumer tastes also show a clear preference for stick packs in both developed and emerging areas. Developed markets often value stick packs for their convenience and easy trial options, while those in emerging areas often value the affordability of small packs relative to family size-volume prices.

Sticks sell: Marketing advantages of stick packs

Stick packs are a brand manager’s dream, as they fulfill the “Four P’s” of Marketing 101: Product, Placement, Price, and Promotion. Brief points on each:

• Product: Stick packs are applicable to a diverse array of product categories, and optimize sensory/organoleptic quality, shelf-life integrity, convenience, choice and utility.
• Placement: Stick packs offer a flexible range for merchandizing on shelves, end caps, islands or point-of-sale channels.
• Price: Price points for stick packs are more advantageous than that of costlier bottles and larger pouch vehicles, as they are lighter to transport, drive impulse and trial, and are compelling to consumers in emerging markets.
• Promotion: Promotional opportunities can be maximized thanks to stick packs’ flexibility and ease for trial, travel, sampling, and assortment retail/club multicount cartons.

About the author

Brad Ward is Head of MSAT & R&D for Pharma Tech Industries, a trusted solutions provider for powder-based products and custom packaging services. The company provides development through high-volume commercial-scale production capabilities, and offers a wide variety of delivery systems and formats including sachets, stick packs, bottles, pouches, effervescents, tablets, capsules, drug-devices, and medical swabs.www.pharma-tech.com.