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Why partnership matters more than price in today’s folding carton market
By Danny Doogan, marketing & sales director, Denmaur
he snack aisle has always been a battleground of fighting for consumer attention and snap purchase decisions, but what has changed is how much now rides on it. Partnership is perhaps the most overworked word in this industry. Every supplier’s sales deck promises it, and in practice it usually amounts to a familiar rep and a hamper in December. Folding carton converters have heard the claim so often they have stopped listening for it. That is a shame, because the principle behind the word decides more about a folding carton business than the price list ever will.
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A practical way to tell a genuine partner from an ordinary supplier is to watch where the risk is. A material supplier typically delivers tonnes to specification and leaves the volatility with the converter. A partner takes some of that volatility onto its own books, through stock it holds, capacity it keeps free, or a lead time it can reduce when a converter’s best laid production plans fall apart.
WHAT THE LAST FIVE YEARS TAUGHT CONVERTERS
Ask a production director what changed their thinking over the last decade, and most will point to the same stretch of time. Brexit added customs friction from January 2021, then COVID moved the bulk of demand from food-on-the-go to home delivery inside a single quarter. Then the 2022 energy crisis pushed several European mills into allocation, and a handful cut or paused production altogether.
Converters felt each impact as availability tightened, lead times slipped and customers wanted guarantees that no packaging supplier could put in writing. What they
learned has stuck, however. Supply security comes from a relationship built and forged with a supplier over years, well before any crisis arrives.
THE CHEAPEST QUOTE, THE MOST EXPENSIVE JOB
Procurement teams are rightly choosy about the board suppliers they work with, and price per tonne is often the battleground. However, in today’s market, the costs that do real damage arrive later. This might be when a converter declines a premium order because the board is on a weeks-long delay from the mill. Or they over-order stock to feel covered and tie up cash and floor space doing so. Or a customer, after a second late delivery from their converter, moves to a competitor and takes next year’s work with them. Each of those outcomes brings a cost that dwarfs the few pounds saved on the original rate. Procurement won the cost-per-sheet but paid for it downstream.
FLEXIBILITY BECAME THE ADVANTAGE The UK folding carton market was valued at USD $1.99bn in 2025, according to Mordor Intelligence, and is expected to grow at more than 7 per cent CAGR to 2031. The engine behind this growth is agility; SKU variations, direct-to-consumer brands and digital press investment are all pulling in the same direction. The focus is on shorter runs, quicker changeovers and demand that is more volatile and harder to forecast. The converter who turns work around fastest is taking share from the converter who cannot, and price has stopped being the sole deciding factor. This is where a merchant holding UK stock changes what jobs are viable. Picture a converter who wins a short-run chilled-carton job at short notice. Standard mill lead times
run four to six weeks, on minimum tonnages far larger than the order needs. The two obvious responses, turn the work away or commit to months of board to justify a mill run, both have major costs attached.
DENMAUR’S REEL FAST OPERATION OFFERS A THIRD RESPONSE. Denmaur holds cartonboard in UK stock and converts it to bespoke sheet sizes inside five working days, with no mill minimum to design around. The job that meant a six-week wait or a speculative over-order becomes a single delivery inside the week. Bespoke sizing also strips material out of the calculation, savings can be in excess of 13.3 per cent against a standard 640 by 900 sheet and 18.8 per cent against 450 by 640. That is board a converter never has to buy, ship or trim away as waste. It also helps when a converter’s own line is the problem. If the order book is full and a job would otherwise run late, Reel Fast can convert it at Walsall and deliver, so being busy doesn’t mean letting a customer down. It works as a backup, too. When a mill declares force majeure or puts a grade on allocation, a converter has a second source in the UK to fall back on.
THE PROBLEMS A PARTNER CATCHES EARLY
Operational pressure is technical as well as commercial, and this is where the difference between a supplier and a partner shows. A board that runs slightly differently can crack at the crease, shift colour on press, or drag on the gluer. A supplier just moving tonnes finds this out at the point of rejection, once the job has already failed on the line. A partner who knows a converter’s presses and run-speeds can spot the risk before the pallet ships. They can also specify around it. When
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September 2026
www.convertermag.com
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