For corrugated plants, the next growth opportunity may not be another box. It may be the protection inside it — as paper-based cushioning, right-sizing and PPWR push the whole transport pack toward fibre.
Europe’s corrugated industry has spent decades improving the box: less fibre, better compression performance, more recycled content, stronger structures and more efficient logistics.
Now the opportunity is moving beyond the four walls of the box.
Underneath it, corrugated pallets can replace wood or plastic in selected applications. Inside it, however, plastic bubble film, foam, air pillows and padded plastic bags are still common.
That makes the next growth question for a corrugated plant surprisingly simple:
Can the space inside the box it already sells become a new revenue stream?
A corrugated converter already designs the structure, specifies the board grade, controls dimensions, develops inserts and partitions and owns the customer relationship. If it can also supply paper cushioning, protective sheets, interlayers or padded paper bags, the sale becomes more than a box.
Corrugated box + corrugated inserts + paper cushioning + paper interlayers/bags.
The box is already fibre-based. The pallet can increasingly be fibre-based. The material inside the box is the next frontier.
The 50% rule is not the story. It makes the story more urgent.
Article 24 of the EU Packaging and Packaging Waste Regulation sets a maximum 50% empty-space ratio for grouped, transport and e-commerce packaging from 1 January 2030 or three years after the relevant implementing acts enter into force, whichever is later.
The crucial detail is that space occupied by filling materials — including paper cuttings, air cushions, bubble wrap and foam — is treated as empty space for this calculation.
That means replacing plastic filler with paper filler does not, by itself, solve an oversized-box problem.
For corrugated producers, this is important because it moves value back toward something they already understand extremely well: pack design.
Do not just replace the filler. Redesign the whole pack.
That may mean a smaller corrugated case, better inserts, improved product positioning, less void, less cushioning material and a lower total shipping cube.
Mondi now explicitly links PPWR packaging minimisation with right-sized packaging that avoids filling materials. Smurfit Westrock’s Box On Demand systems are built around the same industrial logic: create the corrugated box closer to the size of the order, reduce void fill and cut excess material.
What does 50% empty space mean in practice?
Take a simplified example.
A transport box has an internal volume of 100 litres. The products inside occupy 40 litres.
On a simple geometric basis, 60 litres — 60% — are empty.
Adding 60 litres of paper cushioning or plastic bubble wrap does not automatically turn that into a compliant 40% void ratio because the Regulation treats space filled with such filling materials as empty space.
On this simplified volume basis, a 40-litre product load would need a box of about 80 litres for the empty space to fall to 50%: 40 litres of product and 40 litres of remaining space.
The European Commission is still due to establish the detailed calculation methodology by 12 February 2028, so this example is illustrative rather than a legal compliance calculation.
But commercially the direction is already clear:
Right-sizing makes the corrugated box more important, not less.
And once a corrugated producer is redesigning the box, the obvious next question is what it can sell inside it.
One customer, a second revenue pool
Imagine an industrial customer already buying €500,000 of corrugated packaging per year.
If that same customer spends an additional amount equivalent to 10% of its corrugated bill on bubble film, foam, protective bags, paper cushioning, sheets and other in-box protection, that represents a hypothetical €50,000 adjacent revenue pool.
At a 20% contribution margin on that €50,000 of adjacent revenue, that would equal €10,000 of annual contribution per account.
Across ten similar existing accounts, that would represent €500,000 of additional revenue and €100,000 of annual contribution in this illustrative scenario.
These figures are not market benchmarks or Papair economics. They are a simple planning scenario designed to show how an adjacent protective-packaging sale could affect an existing customer account.
The point is to make sales teams ask a question they may not ask today:
How much packaging spend around our boxes is currently being invoiced by somebody else?
That question costs nothing to investigate.
Why Papair and BIOWRAP are worth watching
For a corrugated converter, this is not a move into an unrelated market. The product already reaches the customer in a corrugated box. The question is whether more of the materials protecting that product can come from the same supplier.
PapairWrap is not a paper-coated plastic bubble film. Papair describes it as a paper-based alternative to plastic bubble wrap. The company says the paper layers are joined using pressure and temperature rather than plastic or conventional adhesive, allowing the material to enter the waste-paper recycling stream.
The product is designed for cushioning, wrapping, interleaving and transport protection — exactly the applications that often sit inside a corrugated box.
Papair also offers pre-cut PapairSheets and padded PapairBags, creating formats that can be integrated into picking and packing processes rather than simply supplied as rolls.
The €19.43 million BIOWRAP project pushes that question to industrial scale.
CORDIS lists total project cost at €19.43 million and EU contribution at €13.01 million. The project runs from 1 June 2026 to 31 May 2031 and brings together 14 organisations from seven countries.
At the centre is a first-of-a-kind TRL-8 production platform for paper-based bubble wrap, including a 1,200 mm industrial line targeting 70–100 m/min.
Those are project objectives, not guaranteed current production results.
For a corrugated plant director, that distinction matters.
A 100 m/min headline sounds impressive. But a machine does not make money in m/min.
It makes money in saleable m² at real uptime, after waste, maintenance, energy, labour, licensing and freight.
Why local production could fit corrugated geography
During a conversation with corruga.expert on 7 September 2026, Jean Mattot, Senior Sales & Business Development Manager at Papair, reduced the logistics challenge to four words:
“We are transporting air.”
Protective cushioning is bulky relative to its value. Mattot clarified that a commonly used rule of thumb is a 300–400 km ‘radius around the chimney’ — the area around a factory within which production and delivery normally still make economic sense. He stressed that this is a practical guideline rather than a hard commercial limit; Papair today also ships overseas when necessary to fill its order book.
But the logic will be immediately familiar to corrugated producers.
Finished corrugated boxes are also bulky. Europe’s network of roughly 570 corrugated plants exists in part because shipping low-density packaging over long distances can quickly destroy value.
If paper cushioning faces similar logistics, corrugated plants start with three advantages:
they are already close to industrial demand;
they already deliver packaging locally;
they already sell to the customer who needs the protection.
That is why Papair’s longer-term concepts — including machine sales, leasing, rental, licensing and local partner production discussed with corruga.expert — are worth watching.
If local production becomes commercially viable, corrugated converters could be one natural class of partner.
The correct investment question is not ‘What is the theoretical delivery radius?”
It is:
What is delivered cost per saleable m² at 200, 300 and 400 km — and what contribution remains after freight?
A simple contribution test
Consider a purely illustrative case.
Selling price: €0.70/m²
Paper + direct conversion cost: €0.34/m²
Licence, maintenance, waste and energy: €0.09/m²
Local delivery: €0.08/m²
CONTRIBUTION = €0.70 – €0.34 – €0.09 – €0.08 = €0.19/m²
In other words, €0.19 of each saleable square metre remains to cover fixed overhead, capital costs and profit.
At 500,000 saleable m² per year, that would equal €95,000 annual contribution before fixed overhead and capital charges.
If delivery cost rises to €0.15/m² on a longer lane, contribution falls to €0.12/m², or €60,000 at the same annual volume.
If demand is only 250,000 m², the contribution halves again.
These are hypothetical numbers, not Papair pricing or performance.
But this is the calculation a corrugated producer should make before becoming excited about any new protective-packaging technology.
The commercial hurdle is not sustainability
Mattot was direct about the obstacle:
“Everybody loves it, but they don’t want to pay for it.”
That may be one of the most useful sentences in the entire discussion.
If paper protection is simply more expensive than the plastic it replaces, sustainability alone may not close the sale.
Mattot’s response was equally direct:
“We are looking at the total cost of ownership.”
That pushes the analysis beyond material price.
Can a smaller corrugated box be used?
Can void volume fall?
Can another insert or filler be removed?
Can packing become faster?
Can the number of packaging SKUs fall?
Can freight cube improve?
Can damage remain stable or fall?
This is precisely where the corrugated converter can become more valuable.
The converter already engineers the outer pack. If it can also optimise the protection inside, it can sell a performance outcome rather than square metres of board alone.
This market is already bigger than Papair
Paper protection inside corrugated boxes is not a one-company concept.
Ranpak sells paper systems for void fill, cushioning, wrapping, box lining, interleaving and blocking-and-bracing.
Storopack offers PAPERplus systems and PAPERbubble. Its PAPERplus Shooter³ is rated at up to 160 m/min, although it produces a different cushioning format and should not be compared directly with BIOWRAP’s line target.
At the corrugated-box end, Smurfit Westrock is already industrialising right-sizing through Box On Demand and other systems designed to reduce excess corrugated material, dimensional weight and void fill.
Mondi makes the same PPWR connection explicitly: space filled by air cushions, foam or paper still counts as empty space, and its answer is right-sized packaging.
Together, these examples show that Papair is one technology route inside a larger shift toward fibre-based protection, right-sizing and complete-pack optimisation.
For corrugated plants, the strategic question is therefore technology-neutral:
Which combination of box, insert, cushioning and process can we sell most profitably to customers we already serve?
What is already proven — and what is not
Papair already has commercial applications.
In an October 2025 press release, Papair said PapairSheets and PapairBags had become part of regular operations at ROSSMANN’s new e-commerce warehouse in Großburgwedel. Papair reported that around 9,000 products from the retailer’s assortment were being shipped daily within Germany and to Denmark using the solutions.
The figure is company-reported and not an independently audited benchmark.
According to Papair, customised sheets and bags were integrated into the picking process. ROSSMANN’s Simon Fuhse, Head of Product Availability, said the customised solutions allowed a large part of the cushioning packaging to be integrated directly into picking.
The category should not be approached as “paper instead of plastic” in isolation.
The real design task is:
Box + inserts + void + protection + packing time + damage + freight.
Mattot also told corruga.expert that corrugated box manufacturers are already using Papair sheets as protective interlayers between components.
That is especially relevant because it places the product directly beside conventional corrugated applications rather than in a separate packaging universe.
Test demand before buying capacity
A corrugated producer does not need to buy a machine to test whether this market is real.
Start with two or three existing customers already using plastic bubble film, foam, air pillows, padded bags or paper void fill.
Record the baseline:
-protective-material cost per shipment;
– packing time;
– box dimensions and empty-space ratio;
-damage and return rate;
-number of different packaging materials;
-annual shipment volume.
Then redesign the pack.
That might mean a better-sized corrugated box, improved corrugated inserts, fewer filler materials and a paper cushioning solution bought from an existing supplier.
Measure the same variables again.
The customer and corrugated plant should own the measurement together. Supplier data can support the trial, but the supplier should not be the only party measuring its own success.
Only after the pilot proves demand and economics should the plant consider distribution, licensing or production.
Prove demand first. Buy capacity later.
Nine questions before signing any machine, lease or licence agreement
- What is verified saleable output in m²/hour at real uptime — not only nameplate m/min?
- What waste, downtime and changeover assumptions sit behind the business case?
- What is the complete installed and operating cost, including utilities, tooling, maintenance and working capital?
- What licence, royalty, service or recurring fees apply?
- Which paper grades, basis weights and moisture ranges are qualified?
- What independent tests support cushioning performance, recyclability and repulpability for the exact product?
- What is delivered logistics cost per m² at 200, 300 and 400 km?
- How much verified customer demand exists before capacity is installed?
- What contribution per saleable m² remains after every one of those costs?
The bigger corrugated opportunity
Papair, Ranpak, Storopack, Mondi, Smurfit Westrock and the PPWR collectively point to where the corrugated business can expand:
Under the box: corrugated load carriers can replace wood or plastic in selected applications.
One example is ixs-pal, which develops corrugated-board pallet and load-carrier solutions for applications traditionally served by wood or plastic. For corrugated producers, concepts like this illustrate how the value proposition can expand beyond the box itself — underneath the shipment as well as inside it
Around the product: corrugated inserts and partitions can replace mixed-material structures.
Inside the box: paper cushioning, interlayers and padded bags can replace some plastic protection.
Across the whole system: right-sizing can reduce empty space, filler, freight cube and material complexity.
The four numbers that belong in the boardroom
For a corrugated producer evaluating that move, most marketing claims can be ignored.
The decision eventually comes down to four numbers:
Annual addressable volume within the real sales radius.
Saleable output at real uptime.
Contribution after material, licence and logistics.
Capital required to reach commercial scale.
If those numbers work, the opportunity deserves attention.
If they do not, “plastic-free” will not rescue the business case.
Where the opportunity becomes real
The next logical move is inside it.
BIOWRAP gives that move a serious industrial test, while PPWR adds pressure to improve pack design rather than simply add more filler — even when that filler is paper.
But the commercial opportunity will not be decided by regulation, an EU grant or a machine-speed headline.
It will be decided at the customer’s packing line.
Can a corrugated producer take a box it already sells, redesign the space inside it, reduce plastic and unnecessary void, protect the product at equal or lower total cost — and earn more contribution from the same shipment?
That is the real opportunity.
The corrugated box is already yours.
The next revenue pool may be everything inside it.
Sources
Regulation (EU) 2025/40 — Packaging and Packaging Waste Regulation
European Commission CORDIS — BIOWRAP, Grant Agreement 101292416
FEFCO — European corrugated industry statistics
Papair — PapairWrap product information
Papair — ROSSMANN e-commerce application
Mondi — Packaging minimisation / PPWR
Smurfit Westrock — Box On Demand
CONE PAL — Corrugated board load carriers
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