November 5, 2025
It’s been a few years since our last report on these subjects, so an update seemed appropriate. Think about the recent press releases about a cold corrugator and another corrugator that can digitally print inline. Also, there was an announcement regarding a digital/flexo press with inline rotary die cutting. What are the options for your operation for additional market share or new and better accounts?
By the time you read this, AICC President Mike D’Angelo and I will be back from attending the Fastmarkets International Containerboard Conference (ICC) in October, where AICC participated with Amazon on a panel discussion on e-commerce. We will be back to you with pertinent highlights.
We have written and communicated significantly over many years about both the status of very small-flute corrugated and its growth trend. Countless BoxScore articles (more than 50), AskRalph and AskTom inquiries, webinars, seminars, emails, phone conversations, and face-to-face engagements have encompassed these subjects. We also have taken the message on the road, often appearing at Fastmarkets’ ICCs, Bank of America investor conferences, training sessions at selected containerboard manufacturers, and with my technical network associates at TAPPI’s Corrugated Board Technical Committee meetings.
Tom Weber and I delivered a three-part webinar on the successful information originally presented at AICC’s 2018 Spring Meeting. Updates from the actual participants were included in the 86-slide Flute vs. Paperboard Workshop, with six industry subject matter experts alongside us. Since, there have been improvements in equipment, adhesive applications, substrates, and process controls.
Recently, escalating paper prices, supply chain constraints, paperboard shortages, shifts in consumer buying habits, and employee shortages gave way for opportunities to investigate microflute corrugated. On a somewhat tangential perspective is Amazon’s reduction in ECT and therefore basis weights—not necessarily a movement to micro- and nanoflutes yet. More of my package deliveries have transitioned from 32 ECT to 26 ECT if not paper bags. It’s more than a matter of rightweighting. You may want to review the company’s 2024 sustainability report and gain your own marketing ideas (see QR code).
This movement to nanoflutes—N, G, and O—started around 1995 with Bob Nebeling as the champion at Bobst. More on this history can be found at NOW.AICCbox.org/whitepapers-2. It has now been 30 years since the start here in North America, and this small niche continues to grow somewhat quietly.
First, there were early pioneers and risk takers, then participants, then adopters. Certain parts of the country were more forward in their thinking, primarily the West Coast, the Midwest, and Texas. Now the movement has spread to most regions of the country.
Just look at the equipment ads, plant articles, and press releases in the weekly issues of Board Converting News by the front-end suppliers to micro- and nanoflute laminators and converters—digital presses, AI controls, more consistent paper properties (i.e., less variation).
Substrates as low as 4-point were available in the late 1990s but have been slow to be adapted except elsewhere, particularity in China. This is especially true in Amazon’s “ships in own package” being rebranded as “ships in product packaging.”
We look forward with excitement to learning more about the structural aspects of double-wall E/E and F/F as they relate to the paperboard grades. Past conversions have also been based on a reduction in costs.
With the acquisition of Verso by Billerud of Sweden a few years ago and the announcement of the conversion of at least one paper machine, one could expect to see an increased domestic supply of lightweight white substrates for corrugated or additional paperboard capacity such as folding boxboard. Hood’s announcement about a capacity expansion at its St. Francisville, Louisiana, mill may include their movement toward lighter-weight natural linerboards.
Ralph Young is the principal of Alternative Paper Solutions and is AICC’s technical advisor. Contact Ralph directly about technical issues that impact our industry at askralph@AICCbox.org.
