AICC Hosts Southeast Summit
AICC,The Independent Packaging Association, host- ed its Southeast Summit March 31-April 1 at the Gran- dover Resort in Greensboro, North Carolina.The first “in-person” event for the corrugated and paperboard packaging industries in more than a year brought to- gether 65 AICC members and guests. Ben DeSollar,President and CEO of Sumter Packaging, Sumter, SC, and Director for AICC’s Southeast Region, chaired the meeting.The Summit featured speakers on the current state of the corrugated and containerboard business, a virtual plant tour of Packrite LLC, as well as a panel of boxmakers talking about how their busi- nesses have fared in the face of the COVID pandemic. AICC President Michael D’Angelo opened the meet- ing and presented a brief state of theAssociation,citing a membership retention rate of 94 percent; a surge in the use of AICC’s online Packaging School; and great- er member engagement in the past year on weekly membership zoom calls, virtual tours, converter think tank sessions and the use of the All-Access Pass for ed- ucation and training. He also introduced the Founda- tion for Packaging Education, chartered in the fall of 2020 by AICC’s Board of Directors to raise funds for the continued growth and expansion of industry-spe- cific training programs for employees inAICC member companies. A Look Ahead Mitch Klinger, a Partner at Klingher-Nadler in Engle- wood Cliffs,New Jersey,keynoted the meeting with his presentation called Looking Ahead at Market Force, Box Demand and How to Strategize . Klinger outlined the current state of the business: positive forces such as high box demand, record profits, and elevated levels of capital investment in the industry. On the negative side, he cited tightness in the con- tainerboard market with rising prices; supply chain in- terruptions in other basic materials; a shortage of good people; high-profile ransomware attacks on larger pa- per producers and, of course, the ongoing pandemic and its uncertainties. Klingher also looked at the ef- fects of high-speed converting on the business as more machinery suppliers roll out equipment with shorter set-up times and faster running speeds.He urged mem- bers to educate themselves and their customers about using lighter weight containerboard as a means to cost reduction and improved performance. RalphYoung,AICC’s Technical Advisor, picked up on Klingher’s presentation about lighter weight contain- erboard as he gave a rundown of the current North American paper market, especially the new capacity (Cont’d on Page 10)
6 April 26, 2021 Flexo Market News
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