AICC Hosts (CONT’D FROM PAGE 14)
“You’ve got to have that agreement with WestRock in advance. These are a signal of the importance of the inde- pendent sector, to the mills that execute these agreements with us,” said Ausburn. “The mills slowed production in the first few months of the pandemic and they have struggled to catch up. Box demand has increased, as have cyber- attacks and weather issues. All of these have resulted in supply issues. Price increases are expected to follow, and that’s what’s happening now. Ausburn noted the continual price increase and said that they will be providing members with information on this in
a decline from last year. Expenses have been reduced to keep pace with the decrease in revenue. The drop in revenue from the previous year was due to the lost pro- gramming from the canceled 2020 Spring meeting and its additional programming. “AICC was the recipient of a PPP loan, which was for- given,” said D’Angelo. “We still had a challenge, but we are in good shape. The association is financially sound, the reserves are very strong, and the state of the association, financially, remains in a good place.” AICC met their retention goals and added 25 newmem- bers. The association also created several new programs, including the COVID update calls, daily COVID updates, the All Access program, and virtual plant tour series. It has also launched the Foundation for Packaging Association – a 501 c3 charitable organization – and has matched the $1 million in pledges it received from donor companies. Kevin Ausburn of SMC Packaging, provided an update from the Paperboard Regulation and Sheetboard commit- tee on the supply chain issues and the set-aside agree- ment with WestRock to provide 1.2 million tons to AICC member buyers. The set-aside agreement also provides one million tons of paperboard to buyers on a similar ba- sis. Ausburn said the agreement is set to expire December 31st of this year and some changes will be made to the agreement to make it more beneficial to independents.
the coming weeks. “The economy is very strong right now,” he said. The manufacturing and pur- chasing managers index rose to 60.1 percent in April. This is the highest that it’s been since 2007. In April of last year, the index was 36.1 percent. The unfilled order index is the highest its been in
Kevin Ausburn
17 years, the order back logs are the highest since 2004 and 16 out of 18 manufacturing sectors have shown growth in February. All of these are indicators of how strong the economy is and particularly, how strong the manufacturing sector is.”
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