According to a memo released by Green Markets, a Bloomberg company, Packaging Corporation of America (PCA) issued letters to customers noting a $70 per ton price increase for containerboard, slated to go into effect March 1. This is the first major containerboard company to make a price increase announcement this year.
In 2025, with demand decreases playing into closures that resulted in an approximately 10 percent loss of North American production capacity. The last of those closures is set for next month, and the full impact to the industry should be realized at that time.
Already in the past couple months, the capacity cuts have resulted in producers’ operating rates ticking up into the low 90s, with multiple analysts projecting mid-90s this year.
“Rising energy costs, health insurance premiums, wage inflation and capital-equipment expenses should take center stage,” said the memo. It also mentioned that any containerboard price increases “would be primarily aimed at halting the erosion in box pricing amid sustained demand weakness.”
North American containerboard producers North American containerboard producers didn’t try for price increases in 2025 beyond those that took hold early in the year after having been announced in late 2024. Most of the major producers announced two hikes for 2024, which followed about two years of no increases.
Meanwhile, movement continues behind the scenes on the containerboard price-fixing lawsuit that Artuso Pastry Foods Corp. brought in July 2025 against major producers including Cascades, Georgia-Pacific, Greif, International Paper, Packaging Corporation of America and Pratt Industries. Graphic Packaging International and Smurfit Westrock have since been dismissed from the case.
