Carton Boxmakers Shifting Strategies

With folding carton demand and production so closely tied to consumer spending, particularly on non-durable goods, with the ebb and flow of the national economy, so goes the folding carton industry. As of November, the volume of folding carton shipments was down 1.6 percent vs. 1996, at $4.67 billion vs. $4.74 billion. According to the a National Paperbox Assoc. (NPA) survey, industry backlogs, however, were up slightly, 2.37 weeks vs. 2.26 weeks a year ago, but still down from an industry average of between six and eight weeks two years ago.