Paper Clips

Smurfit Westrock executives said during Wednesday’s earnings call that they’re overall pleased with second-quarter performance and anticipate a stronger second half of the year. North American corrugated volumes were down 4.5% year over year, which was “in line with our expectations as we continue to execute on our value-over-volume strategy,” said CFO Ken Bowles. Company executives and analysts all noted that the containerboard market is strengthening and has tightened significantly in roughly a six-week period this summer. “People did not expect for the market to change so rapidly,” said CEO Tony Smurfit. “Nobody would have been pre-buying.” Barring Smurfit Westrock’s limited sales of coated recycled paperboard, the company is essentially sold out for all paper grades and is in “catch-up mode” for the remainder of the year, he said. “Global paper markets today are as strong as I have seen in my lifetime within this industry,” Smurfit said, adding that conditions for nearly all grades are “as tight as I can remember.”

On the shelf at Costco, you may see a coffee box with a green tree frog printed on it, perched on a leaf so finely rendered it looks like it could be behind glass. It may seem like an odd amount of visual ambition for a corrugated shipper, but for Zavida Coffee Roasters, that's the point. The Concord, Ontario-based brand chose that image deliberately not only to tell its story of its sustainable product but also to make a technical point about the packaging: that a plain corrugated shipper box, printed directly and without lamination, could hold color and detail as well as anything wrapped in glossy film. That box also represents another bold move for the coffee roaster: its first entry into Keurig-compatible pods at Costco, a 76-count format built from the ground up. It's not a redesign or a new label on an old structure but an entirely new package, in format, size, and graphics, developed for a single limited-time run."This was an 'in-and-out' program, so timing was critical to capitalize on the opportunity," says Adi Montas, marketing commercialization manager at Zavida Coffee Roasters. "We needed a solution that allowed us to move quickly without compromising quality, visual impact, and brand equity."