AICC Roundtable (CONT’D FROM PAGE 1)
it’s about paper consumption. Fundamentally two different approaches to the business, which is fine. But I think with continued consolidation, it opens up opportunity for us to go solve customers’ problems and gain market share ver- sus just consuming paper. Grossbard: This is an excellent time for the indepen- dent. Everybody that’s left in the AICC, we know who we are. The people that cashed out over the years, they’re gone. The people that were weak got absorbed, and the people that are left in this market, in this association right now, are all strong. Some want to specialize on smaller plants, smaller lots. Some want to operate a big plant like we have. Some com- panies specialize in displays. Some want to do marketing. The ones who remain in the fight, we are here as long as we want to be here. And we can take anything that they throw at us because we’re faster, more nimble, quicker to market, and we offer better service. We’re picking the inte- grateds’ pockets because we do a better job at servicing customers. When independents get bought out by these larger companies, they often lose the owner involvement. This affects the service because they don’t have the heart and the drive they had when it was individually owned. So, I think the independents can take anything thrown at us and we’re in great shape, especially everybody in this association, because we know what we are, we know what we can do, and we do it better than the integrateds. Wagner: For us, it’s service and solutions. That’s what we hang our hat on, and that’s what we work on every single day. We have intimate relationships with our cus- tomers, all the way to the owner, and our service and our solutions are what we’re there to do. We’re not a box pric- ing entity. So, solutions, relationships, and value. Tucker: We have an unfair advantage to win in the mar- ketplace because basically we help the consumer buy a product and we help the manufacturer sell a product at retail. And what we have is just a box, it’s got to go seven steps to retail, 18 steps to your door. We got to make it pretty so you can buy it, you understand what it is inside of it. The package is the product, and now the party’s inside of the box when you bring it home. I also see right now, all the graphic people and people putting ink on paper are busy. People that are more in the graphic end are really, really busy right now. Morelli: The integrateds removed capacity. Why hasn’t that translated into stronger pricing? Tucker: I think we’ll see it. We have to recoup a lot of costs coming in the door. Everyone has labor increases, insurance increases, property leasing increases. Transpor- tation costs are up. It’s a highly, highly inflated market out there for producers. Grossbard: That’s why the increases are not a bad thing because we pick up the points, pick up the margins to offset some of these labor costs, transportation costs,
Independents make up five percent of the market, so we do not control the narrative. We react to the market- place. But what we do control is our operations. We con- trol our sales effort. We control our production effort. We control our manufacturing facilities. If we just pay attention to what we can control, we can take the increases and decreases as they come, and we’re going to do great. Schaefer: The story we have to tell as independents is different than the story that the big guys get to tell about a $70 increase. When there are price changes like this, it’s a much eas- ier time to increase your own margins, and you have to control your controllables. But at the same time, the rules are changing, and we don’t have a choice. We’re buying paper, not manufacturing it. We have to take it to the street, or our margin gets decreased. And in many cases, the big guys don’t care if their box plants make money. years of corrugated coming into COVID. We made more boxes than our factories could ever imagine making. And I see us pulling the nose of the aircraft up as we get off the carrier. We’re going to fly to new heights. I’m bullish about this year. I think we have a lot of things going for us. There’s a lot of momentum. I really believe we will go through another replenishment cycle of inventories, which have been drawn down to zero levels. We’re back to lean manufacturing and running just in time. In the United States, consumers are still buying things. And that’s startling to me. If you think about everything that we’ve gone through — including COVID — we have the most resilient consumers on the planet. And last time I checked, we are the largest consuming economy on the planet. And this consumer is a little bit pent up. They are ready to start shopping and buying a whole bunch of stuff. We have the World Cup coming to the United States. We have the Super Bowl coming to Los Angeles, and the Olympics. All these promotional opportunities are happen- ing in retail, and retail drives packaging, and the package is the product. Morelli: What is the state of the independents right now. How do we win as an independent in this market? What is our competitive advantage, and how we can ac- tually win individually? Morelli: Are we in a down cycle or are we fundamentally different in terms of the demand environment? Tucker: I believe we’re coming out of our down cycle. We’ve been in a corrugated recession for more than 2 years. We had the greatest golden Schaefer: The big guys are extracting value from a cus- tomer base, and we solve complex packaging problems. For us, it’s about our customer. Oftentimes for the big guys, Joe Morelli
CONTINUED ON PAGE 22
20 May 4, 2026
www.boardconvertingnews.com
Made with FlippingBook flipbook maker