Uncertain prospects for energy supply and massively increased raw material, transport and energy costs have the corrugated board industry looking to the coming months with extreme concern. The cost increases dramatically exceed previous adjustments to corrugated board prices, as the German Association of the Corrugated Board Industry (VDW) has now explained.
According to the VDW, the price level for corrugated board could only be adjusted insufficiently in comparison to the overall burden of cost increases. Nevertheless the industry continues to reliably ensure the supply of the number one transport packaging and thus make an indispensable contribution to maintaining supply chains.
„The drastically increased price level of our most important raw material, corrugated base paper, has been confronting our industry with ever new stress tests since September 2020. Against this backdrop, a slight decline in the overall price of corrugated base paper, which was recorded again for the first time in July 2022, must be seen as a drop in the ocean. It does nothing to change the considerable difficulties that our industry has been facing for some time.“
Dr Steffen P. Würth, VDW Chairman
The overall price level for corrugated base paper is increased by a total of 85.3 per cent between September 2020 and May 2022. „A direct comparison with the price of our product made from it makes it abundantly clear how wide the gap has widened here: The price level for corrugated board in May 2022 was 43.2 per cent higher than in September 2020 - the paper price increase, on the other hand, was around twice as high“, explains the VDW-Chairwoman.
Cost increases for other important raw materials as well as in the areas of energy and transport had a significant additional impact on the corrugated board industry. For example the price of starch and starch products rose by 81.1 per cent between September 2020 and July 2022, according to the Federal Statistical Office. Starch-based glue is required for bonding the paper webs to the finished corrugated board and is therefore very important for the industry.
According to the Federal Statistical Office, the cost of gas sold to industry climbed by 448.3 per cent between September 2020 and July 2022. According to the Federal Statistical Office, special contract customers in the industrial sector had to accept a total increase of 172 per cent in electricity prices between September 2020 and July 2022. The freight cost index calculated by Verkehrsrundschau shows an increase of 18.3 per cent from the second quarter of 2020 to the second quarter of 2022.
„Two thirds of all transport packaging in Germany is made of corrugated cardboard - which in the VDW Organised companies therefore make an indispensable contribution every day to ensuring that industry, trade and consumers are reliably supplied. We want to continue to fulfil this responsibility. In return, however, our industry must be able to count on no longer bearing a disproportionately high share of the overall dramatically increased cost burden“ is Würth's urgent appeal.
Source: VDW
