It wasn’t just you. Americans consumed more corrugated cardboard boxes than ever last year.
Stay-at-home orders and stimulus checks fueled a banner year for e-commerce and a run on shipping boxes.
U.S. producers in 2020 churned out nearly 407 billion square feet of corrugated product, from dot.com delivery boxes to watermelon crates, according to the Fibre Box Association. The year-over-year rise was 3.4%, equivalent to about 477 square miles of additional corrugated board. Enough to cover New York City and then some.
The demand prompted producers to raise prices to new highs in autumn and again recently, adding to the supply-chain woes piling up on businesses as the economy reopens.
Already contending with record wood prices, scarce shipping containers and fast-rising freight, cabinetmaker John K. Morgan now faces more costly corrugated board. His Green Forest Cabinetry is paying 22% more for boxes than a year ago. Bales of corrugated board, which are folded into custom packaging at the company’s Chesapeake, Va., factory, cost nearly 10% more and he has been warned by his supplier that prices are headed higher.
