Lesson 3 of 3 Math checked Facts checked against sources on 1 October 2026 12 min

Packaging players, trends 2024 to 2026, and how to crack the cases

Who the big paper and packaging companies are by region, the mergers, closures and new rules of 2024 to 2026, typical prompts, traps and drills.

Industry brief, with a one-minute summary: Paper and packaging

Firm processes and online tests change from year to year and differ by office. Use this to prepare, and confirm the exact current steps on the firm's own careers page.

Key takeaways

Packaging cases usually ask why margins fell, whether to close or build a mill or plant, how to win a big customer, or how to respond to new recycling rules.
Common traps: Treating revenue growth as success when it only reflects higher resin or aluminium prices passed through.
Extended producer responsibility (EPR): brand owners and packaging makers pay for, or organise, the collection and recycling of the packaging they put on the market.
Recyclability, recycled content and reuse rules: the EU, India and others set targets for how much packaging must be recyclable, contain recycled material, or be reusable.
Bans and taxes: bans on some single-use plastics, and taxes on plastic packaging with too little recycled content, such as the UK plastic packaging tax.

Key idea

Packaging cases usually ask why margins fell, whether to close or build a mill or plant, how to win a big customer, or how to respond to new recycling rules. Start with the material and the position in the chain: a mill lives on utilization, fibre and energy; a converter lives on keeping customers, passing on costs and running lines full.

EBITDA margin of four paper packaging companies, 2025 (percent)(%)

So-what

Even the largest paper packaging groups earned EBITDA margins in the low to mid teens in 2025, a weak year for box demand and paper prices in Europe and North America.

Examples of packaging players by region (examples only, not a ranking)

Examples of packaging players by region (examples only, not a ranking)
Region	Paper, board and boxes	Plastic, metal, glass and cartons
Europe	Smurfit Westrock (Ireland), Mondi, Stora Enso, UPM	Tetra Pak (cartons), Huhtamaki, Constantia Flexibles, Verallia (glass), Ardagh (metal and glass)
United States	International Paper (now with DS Smith), Packaging Corporation of America, Graphic Packaging	Amcor (now with Berry Global, listed in the US), Ball and Crown (cans), Sealed Air, Sonoco
Middle East	Obeikan and Middle East Paper Company (Saudi Arabia)	Napco National (Saudi Arabia), Hotpack (UAE, food packaging)
India	ITC (paperboards), JK Paper, West Coast Paper	UFlex (flexible packaging), TCPL Packaging, Huhtamaki India
Southeast Asia	SCG Packaging (Thailand), Asia Pulp and Paper (Indonesia), APRIL (Indonesia)	SCG Packaging, local converters serving food and drink makers
China	Nine Dragons, Lee and Man (containerboard)	Large can and plastic converters serving local brands

So-what

The big paper groups own both mills and box plants; the plastic, can and carton makers sit next to their customers and live on long contracts.

Trends 2024 to 2026 (checked 1 October 2026)

Mergers made giants: Smurfit Kappa and WestRock combined on 5 July 2024 to form Smurfit Westrock, which reported net sales of about USD 31.2 billion and an adjusted EBITDA margin of 15.8 percent in 2025. International Paper completed its purchase of DS Smith on 31 January 2025, and Amcor completed its combination with Berry Global on 30 April 2025; Amcor's sales in the year to June 2026 rose 57 percent to about USD 23.5 billion, almost all of it from adding Berry.
Closing high-cost capacity: in 2025 Smurfit Westrock closed about 600,000 tons of high-cost capacity, and International Paper closed three US containerboard mills (Red River, Savannah and Riceboro); Savannah and Riceboro alone had about 1.4 million tons a year of capacity (as reported by Packaging Dive). In January 2026 International Paper also announced a plan to split into two listed companies, one for North America and one for Europe, the Middle East and Africa, expected to take 12 to 15 months.
Graphic paper keeps shrinking: in Europe, paper and board output fell about 1.6 percent in 2025 to about 77.4 million tonnes, with graphic paper down about 7 percent, while packaging grades held steady at about 64 percent of output. Mills ran at about 81 percent of capacity, and the number of mills in the Cepi countries fell from 1,586 in 1991 to 740 in 2025. UPM closed paper machines that cut its paper capacity by 13 percent.
Weak boxes, cheap fibre: US box shipments in the third quarter of 2025 were the lowest for a third quarter since 2015, according to the Fibre Box Association. Prices for old corrugated containers (OCC) hit their low for the year in December 2025, around USD 55 a ton in one regional series, and were about USD 100 a ton by July 2026, still below the five-year average of about USD 140 (price series as reported by Packaging Dive).
Cans keep growing: Ball's global shipments of aluminium packaging rose 4.1 percent in 2025. In Europe (the EU, the UK, Switzerland, Norway and Iceland), 76.3 percent of aluminium drink cans were recycled in 2023, while the US consumer recycling rate for cans was only 43 percent.
New EU packaging rules: the Packaging and Packaging Waste Regulation, in force since 11 February 2025, applies from 12 August 2026. It aims to make all packaging recyclable in an economically viable way by 2030, and requires countries to collect at least 90 percent of single-use plastic and metal drink containers separately by 2029.
India tightens plastic rules: India banned a list of single-use plastic items from 1 July 2022 and makes producers, importers and brand owners responsible for collecting and recycling their plastic packaging (extended producer responsibility).

Regulation basics

Extended producer responsibility (EPR): brand owners and packaging makers pay for, or organise, the collection and recycling of the packaging they put on the market. Fees are often higher for packs that are hard to recycle.
Recyclability, recycled content and reuse rules: the EU, India and others set targets for how much packaging must be recyclable, contain recycled material, or be reusable.
Bans and taxes: bans on some single-use plastics, and taxes on plastic packaging with too little recycled content, such as the UK plastic packaging tax.
Deposit return schemes: drinkers pay a small deposit on bottles and cans and get it back when they return them, which sharply raises collection rates.
Food contact safety: packaging that touches food must meet strict rules on which materials and inks may be used.
Competition law: mergers of mills and box plants are reviewed region by region, since boxes are a local business.

Typical case prompts and how to crack them

Packaging case prompts, the structure that comes from the goal, and the first driver to check

Packaging case prompts, the structure that comes from the goal, and the first driver to check
Prompt	Structure from the goal	First driver to check
A European containerboard mill is losing money. Should we close it?	Cash margin per tonne through the cycle, closure costs, what the mill supplies to our own box plants	Cash cost per tonne against market price across the cycle, especially energy
A box maker's margin fell although volume held	Margin per tonne: box price minus board, converting and freight; timing of price changes	Board and fibre price moves and the delay in passing them on
Should an Indian flexible packaging maker invest in recyclable single-material film lines?	Demand from brand owners under plastic rules, price premium, investment, utilization	Which large customers must meet recyclability rules, and by when
Should a can maker build a plant in Vietnam or Saudi Arabia?	Signed volume, plant capacity and utilization, contract price over aluminium, investment and payback	How much volume an anchor drinks customer will commit to
A food company wants to cut packaging cost by 10 percent	Spend by material and pack; weight, specification, supplier and freight levers	The few packs and materials that make up most of the spend
Two box makers want to merge. What are the synergies?	Overlapping plants, freight savings, mill integration, purchasing, overheads	How many plants serve the same customers within trucking distance

So-what

For mills, think utilization and cost position through the cycle; for converters, think customers, contracts and pass-through.

Using this in a case

Ask: which material, and are we a mill, a converter or both? Who are the biggest customers and what do their contracts say about passing on input costs? How full are our mills and lines? Where are input prices in their cycle?
Calculate: cash margin per tonne (or per thousand units), fixed cost per tonne at the current operating rate, the margin lost or gained during a pass-through delay, and the savings from lighter packs.
Say: answer first, with the margin per unit and the volume, then the reason, the risk (often the cycle or a big customer leaving) and the next step.

What a strong first answer sounds like

"A box maker earns the gap between its box price and the cost of board, converting and freight, and its prices follow board prices with a delay. Since volume held, I suspect costs moved before prices did. I would first look at how board and fibre prices moved in the last two quarters, and how long our contracts take to pass that on."

Common traps

Treating revenue growth as success when it only reflects higher resin or aluminium prices passed through. Reading one quarter's margin without knowing where input prices moved. Forgetting that empty packaging is bulky, so plants must be near customers. Closing a mill without checking which box plants depend on it. Assuming recyclable means recycled, when collection systems decide that. Reaching for a generic framework instead of the real driver: start from the material, utilization and the pass-through terms in the contracts.