Since 2006, CO2Meter has grown to become one of the leaders in the gas detection industry. We believe our growth comes from our core values of building trust with customers and suppliers, promoting education, and our hyper-focus on customer service and support.
2022 was no different - but it certainly has been memorable.
Like many other businesses we faced tremendous changes, unique challenges, uncertain economic times and continued innovation in the industries we support. Yet, our team could not be more excited to celebrate another year in the gas detection community.
As Maya Angelou said, "To know where you're going, it is almost always important to look at where you've been."
One word the CO2Meter sales and support teams keep hearing from partners and customers is "momentum." Even amidst 2022's periods of uncertainty and extended supply chain issues we felt a sense of optimism from our partners and communities as they began to look to 2023 and beyond. That hopeful outlook is something our team plans to carry forward and share.
While we were able to surpass many unexpected obstacles this year, too, we took note of some particularly interesting changes in how customers are using our technologies. Below we have gathered some statistics that showed trends across several of our core industries and the ways that they have changed in the last year.
Restaurants and Hospitality
In the restaurant and hospitality market we saw a 10.9% increase in industry growth from 2021. We believe COVID business losses made this increase lower than normal. The National Restaurant Association also reported that 40% of operators surveyed still believe they will need one more year to recover.
In 2022, restaurants continued adopting new technologies and used insights from the pandemic to meet customers' expectations while offsetting employee losses. Four areas where analysts believe to see the most change in 2023 are off-premise dining, automation, omnichannel strategy, and payments. From a CO2Meter perspective our largest restaurant partners are projecting nearly double the expected location growth in 2023 than was originally planned.
Craft Breweries, Wineries, and Brew Pubs
For craft breweries, wineries, and brew pubs the growth trends continued. Approximately 3 times as many breweries opened to replace any closed in 2022. The Brewers Association has forecasted that breweries will keep growing by 9.38% each year.
The challenge for craft brewers continues to be consolidation by the major industry players. We see this trend in consolidation continuing, while thousands of hyper-local breweries come and go in the market. Other trends we've noticed are the rise in seltzers and cocktails with a waning interest in CBD infused beverages.
Industrial
The industrial gas market is another core industry that CO2Meter works hand in hand with on a continued basis. When it comes to gas distribution, we rely on our industrial partners and also work closely with industrial gas association partners like the team at Compressed Gas Association (CGA).
When we take a look at this years trends, it came with a lot of uncertainty and challenges. For instance, 2022 presented a number shortages - from helium to carbon dioxide (CO2) with continued supply and demand strains. However, the demand for industrial gases, such as oxygen and CO2 was at an all time high.
When we look at upcoming trends, reports show the industrial gas market is estimated to see an annual market growth of 8.5% in the period of 2021 to 2028. This is in part by the rise in the medical and health sectors, as well as the increase in demand for semiconductors and the growing usage of specialty gas in cleaning.
Indoor Agriculture
The indoor farming industry seemed to have its challenges this year with CO2 gas supply shortages as a whole.
While the indoor cannabis industry continues to grow (about 60% of cannabis is grown indoors) there are continuing challenges of legality, as well as banking and federal regulations. Additionally, the changing U.S. economy saw a change in consumer spending that led to a decrease in new facility startups. However, the industry is still projected to top $33 billion in sales in 2022, a 32% increase year-over-year.
CO2Meter has seen a small change in the market away from larger corporate cultivation facilities to more "craft" growers. That trend appears to be holding steady.
Food Storage and Transportation
The food storage and transportation industry has dramatically changed the way businesses operate by providing technological advances and simplifying supply chain issues. In 2022, the core trends that we continued to see surrounded robotics in warehouses, quality assurance technologies, and cold chain logistics with dry ice transport.
However, the trend in cold chain logistics was not one unfamiliar to the team at CO2Meter. For the past few years, we have worked closely with national chain pharmacies during the pandemic to supply low-temperature oxygen safety monitors when transporting critical vaccines with dry ice.
As we look towards the future in this market, we find cold storage transportation projected to reach multimillion USD by 2029.
Scientific and Medical
The scientific and medical industries continue to expand its reach in size around biological gas measurement. Much of this growth can be attributed to the increasing geriatric population. This is propelling the demand for further disease diagnosis, medical technology advancements, and laboratory research in the measurement of blood gases.
One key area that deserved noting was the immense improvements in laboratory research and testing that were at an all time high in 2022 - with bioanalytical and lab chemistry services achieving the highest generating revenue since 2021. This is stated to grow by 3.7% from 2022 to 2030.
We continue to see more sensors used by artificial intelligence and machine learning for predictive analytics in hospitals and laboratories. CO2Meter partners in this sector continue to request sensing technologies for developing innovative treatments as well as the continued growth in cryotherapies, genetic testing, and biotechnologies.
Welding
The welding and industrial industries are expected to experience growth of $6.7 billion between 2021 and 2025. The Bureau of Labor Statistics expects to see 2% growth between 2021 and 2031 for the industry.
We see trends surrounding growth for welders in areas such as plastics, composites, and new alloys. Further, the increasing need for accuracy and precision in mixed gas shielding, sheet metal construction, transportation, aerospace, and automotive. Because of these changes CO2Meter is placing an increased focus on this market with new products.
Indoor Air Quality
To conclude our industry trend insights, we look at the indoor air quality market. Indoor air quality has evolved as a subset of the HVAC industry due to COVID over the past two years with home IAQ device ownership increasing from 2019 to mid-2021. Consumer trends show the indoor air quality device opportunities will continue to grow at an annual rate of 10% from 2022-2027.
While the spike in indoor air quality awareness seems to have subsided from the early days of the pandemic, 50% of US households now see smart air treatments as "necessary."
This trend is further strengthened by the EPA recently awarding $53,400,000 in grants aimed to help state and local governments, non-profits and housing authorities to improve IAQ in public places.
CO2Meter sees a continuing trend in the market for consumers to gravitate towards low-cost, IAQ devices while businesses and industries continue to seek out the best solutions.
Change Continues at CO2Meter
In addition to the many changes in the industries we serve, 2022 brought many memorable moments for our business too.
We thank all of our partners, customers, and associate members for continuing to build their business with us. We are incredibly appreciative and grateful for their continued loyalty and trust in our products.
We look forward to remaining dedicated in taking the latest technologies to new heights and continuing to solve the needs of our partners now and in the future.
Here's to the great that awaits in 2023.