The Cardboard Boxpocalypse and the State of the US Economy
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Bloomberg Audio Studios Podcasts Radio News.
Hello and welcome to another episode of the All Thoughts Podcast. I'm Tracy Alloway.
And I'm Joe Weissentall.
Joe, I am gonna put something on the table. And you tell me what it is, okay?
Go on.
All right, here I go.
It is a uh this is so this is a corrugated, I believe, cardboard box and has tape that says fragile. And I would guess it's about I don't know, I'm not good at measurements. It'd be eighteen inches by Thirty-six inches, something like that.
That is a very good physical description of a box. It's a cardboard box. However, I'm gonna say you're wrong. It is in fact A macroeconomic indicator. The other acceptable answer is it's part of the odd lots logo.
That's right. That's right. It's a box and that is core to oddlots. But you know, now we're gonna talk about literally when you think box, you don't often first think magic money box positive. And when you think box, you often don't necessarily think of a container ship, which is often called a box as in the book the box. But I think when people think about a box, they think about a cardboard box, corrugated or not.
Now is a very good time to be thinking about boxes, by the way, because there's been some commentary about this, but we've basically had a sort of box apocalypse in the States. Are we still having
one?
Uh, jury's kind of out, and we'll get into that in the discussion, but US box shipments so boxes of boxes, which I find funny. Sort of box exception. Anyway, US box shipments have fallen to the lowest second quarter reading since twenty fifteen. That's according to the Fiber Box Association. So these are
probably like probably like they're like folded up. Yeah, they're probably not they're maybe wrapped in plastic or something like that. So shipments of those lowest since like 2015.
Yeah. And I think there are some other numbers we can get into that are like the worst since the financial crisis and things like that. And obviously the concern is Boxes tend to contain products that people are buying, right? So if no one's buying boxes, what does that say about retail spending, the health of the consumer, and the direction of the broader economy? That's when you get into the macro indicator stuff.
You know, I love e commerce. But I hate breaking down boxes. I know. I hate it so much. And then you like rip it up. There's no it's never quick. I would like to see some innovation on the ease of collapsibility. You know what I did?
Because I buy a lot. I trained my dog to rip apart Amazon boxes. Oh, that's
amazing.
But then he kinda went on strike and stopped doing it. Well,
that would have been cool. Get
your kids to do it.
Yeah.
Put 'em to work. Okay, well I am happy to say we do in fact have the perfect guest. We're gonna be speaking with Ryan Fox. He is a containers and packaging analyst for Bloomberg Intelligence. So Ryan, thanks so much for coming on OutLots.
Thanks for having me.
What is the “box apocalypse” and why are analysts treating cardboard shipments as a macro‑economic indicator?
It's so nice to actually meet you in person because we've been IBing for a while talking about boxes. I don't know how this became so interesting to me, but probably because of the decline that we've been seeing.
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Chapters
7 chapters
1
What is the main topic discussed in this episode?
0:00–4:12
2
What is the “box apocalypse” and why are analysts treating cardboard shipments as a macro‑economic indicator?
4:12–6:23
3
How have U.S. box shipments changed in the past year and what does the data say about retail demand?
6:23–12:34
4
Who is Ryan Fox and what is his role at Bloomberg Intelligence in the packaging industry?
12:34–14:08
5
What are the latest numbers on box shipments, square‑footage metrics, and the Bloomberg Corrugated Box Cost Index?
14:08–19:00
6
How are corrugated boxes actually made – from flutes and liners to double‑wall construction?
19:00–41:06
7
Which companies dominate the U.S. container‑board market and how has consolidation reshaped the industry?
41:06–46:33
Speakers
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