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Managing the cost of food and beverage (F&B) packaging has become increasingly complex. One moment, the price of corrugated board for your snack boxes surges unexpectedly. Next, a logistics bottleneck sends freight costs soaring. Or a sudden spike in primary aluminum premiums increases the cost of your beverage cans.
For food and beverage procurement teams, these scenarios are not hypothetical. They are the daily reality of a fast-evolving industry, where understanding every cost is critical to maintaining margin stability. Recent geopolitical events have only added to this complexity. Escalating tensions between the US and Iran, along with disruptions in vital maritime routes, have reshaped purchasing behaviors, constricted supply chains and inflated energy prices.
When you’re responsible for sourcing materials, you can’t rely on gut feelings or supplier stories. You need reliable commodity intelligence to give you a competitive advantage. At the core of any smart sourcing strategy is packaging price intelligence, which helps answer a fundamental question: how much should your packaging cost, both now and in the future?
Market volatility is the new normal across all types of packaging and raw materials. Recent developments illustrate how quickly global events can impact local procurement budgets. While a ceasefire agreement between the US and Iran improved broad market sentiment, physical supply and logistics remain uneven across key routes.
Shipping constraints and higher energy costs are tightening supply chains. If your procurement strategy treats packaging and ingredients as isolated categories, you risk missing the broader macroeconomic picture. You need an independent, transparent view of the markets to separate legitimate cost increases from supplier margin padding.
This is where using a Price Reporting Agency (PRA) like Fastmarkets for food and beverage packaging procurement makes a difference.
Fastmarkets provides commodity intelligence for all your materials—from packaging and ingredients to feedstocks and carbon. But what does that mean in practice?
In the video below, Matt Graves, SVP, RISI Indices, explains how we consolidate all this information into a single, trusted and transparent view for our customers.
If you’ve ever needed an independent, transparent view of food and beverage packaging markets—one not reliant on your suppliers—our commodity market intelligence can help.
A Price Reporting Agency (PRA) is an independent organization that assesses, reports and publishes market-reflective prices for a wide range of commodities. PRAs, like Fastmarkets, play a critical role in bringing transparency and efficiency to opaque markets, including metals, mining, forest products and agriculture.
At Fastmarkets, we do this by gathering pricing information directly from active market participants—including producers, consumers and traders—through a rigorous and structured methodology. The resulting price assessments are market-reflective, unbiased and used as benchmarks in physical contracts and as a key input for strategic analysis and risk management.
So, for food and beverage procurement leaders, think of us as your trusted referee in the global commodity market. Fastmarkets doesn’t manufacture or trade commodities. Instead, we gather data from buyers, sellers and traders, applying rigorous standards to publish prices that reflect true market conditions for specific products—like folding boxboard or aluminium—on any given day.
Stop volatile packaging costs from eating your margins. Get expert pricing data for paper, aluminum, and pallets to make smarter purchasing decisions. Get full supply chain visibility.
Fastmarkets provides reliable commodity intelligence through a methodical approach, which includes:
For procurement teams, we provide the certainty needed to source packaging effectively—whether you’re running a private-label initiative, launching a limited-edition product and need to know exactly how much packaging costs to maintain your margins.
Procurement within the food and beverage industry is inherently complex, and packaging is a strategic component of that process. Siloed teams handling ingredients and packaging separately miss opportunities to optimize spend and manage risk. Unifying both under one PRA—one that covers everything from packaging price intelligence—such as paper products, aluminum, tin, and wooden pallets—to ingredients like vegetable oils, grains and animal fats—provides a unified, comprehensive view of your true cost drivers.
For the sustainability-focused buyer, we also offer carbon-focused insights, including carbon credit intelligence, outlooks and CBAM, addressing all your supply chain needs. Learn more.
Accurately estimating packaging costs requires reliable data and market insights. With tools like Fastmarkets’ Index Builder and our food and beverage commodity intelligence, you can understand your costs with precision. By analyzing historical price trends, seasonality and market forecasts, procurement teams gain a clear understanding of cost drivers, such as recycled fiber or cartonboard prices. Allowing you to make informed decisions, negotiate smarter and align your packaging spend with business goals.
Here’s how Fastmarkets can help food and beverage companies turn data into a competitive advantage:
Fragmented data and limited cost transparency are common procurement challenges for large food and beverage companies. Suppliers may claim rising input costs, but without independent data, verifying these claims becomes a challenge. This lack of visibility can lead to overpaying, missed savings opportunities and difficulty aligning budgets with actual market conditions.
Fastmarkets provides reliable, independent intelligence that gives you the transparency needed to negotiate better deals. Our forward-looking insights help you anticipate market volatility and plan budgets with confidence. By unifying data across packaging and ingredients, Fastmarkets helps you make informed decisions that optimize costs and reduce risk.
The scenario:You’re negotiating a tender for corrugated boxes with a European supplier, and they claim a significant price hike, citing soaring production costs due to the energy crisis. Before agreeing, you check the latest Fastmarkets energy and paper packaging insights. The supplier is based in Italy, a country heavily dependent on natural gas for energy production. However, the data shows that while the Dutch TTF gas benchmark has surged, the paper packaging segment is grappling with oversupply, which has kept price increases relatively modest so far. Equipped with this analysis of regional energy dependency, you confidently challenge the supplier’s numbers. You negotiate an increase that reflects the true market impact on testliner production costs, not just the general energy price surge—protecting your budget and building credibility in the partnership.
Ready to win your next negotiation? Download our food and beverages forecasting playbook and start using market data to your advantage. Get your copy.
When you’re sourcing materials like paperboard and aluminium, cost volatility across multiple inputs can be a constant challenge. Unexpected packaging cost swings can destroy margins, delay launches, making it difficult to benchmark costs or identify savings opportunities. Precision in forecasting keeps projects on track and pricing competitive.
Fastmarkets delivers packaging price intelligence you can act on. With real-time insights into the costs of various materials, you can benchmark prices, identify trends and secure favorable contracts, avoiding unexpected cost increases.
The scenario:You’re budgeting for an upcoming beverage line featuring eco-friendly cartons and aluminum cans. Your aluminum supplier proposes a significant price increase, citing supply issues as the reason. Referencing our aluminum market outlook, you learn that supply shocks from the Middle East are straining global markets and pushing regional premiums higher. However, you also note that this has impacted Mexico more severely than the US, with suppliers diverting material to higher-paying markets in Asia and Europe. Armed with these insights, you challenge the supplier’s justification for a sharp, immediate increase by pointing out that as a US-based company, the direct impact is less severe than portrayed. You use this to negotiate a more reasonable contract, helping your company save costs and maintain a smooth product launch.
In the food and beverage industry, brands are navigating a complex landscape of sustainability mandates and evolving compliance standards. When it comes to sourcing packaging for private-label products, this means finding a careful balance between cost-effectiveness and achieving sustainability targets. Limited visibility into supplier pricing and the cost of sustainable materials can make it difficult to ensure competitiveness while meeting environmental commitments. Without reliable benchmarks, you risk overpaying or falling short of your sustainability targets.
Fastmarkets provides independent benchmarks for supplier pricing, giving you the transparency needed to make informed decisions. We also offer insights into the cost of sustainable materials, helping you align procurement strategies with your brand’s sustainability goals.
The scenario:Your company pledges to move to 100% recyclable fiber-based packaging by 2026, a goal driven by market pressure and sustainability requirements. Your supplier quotes a high price, citing increased demand for sustainable materials. Using Fastmarkets data, you verify that while demand for fiber-based packaging is growing, success depends on cost competitiveness. You learn from expert insights that molded fiber is becoming a more viable and scalable alternative. This insight allows you to negotiate a better deal and reallocate savings to other areas of your product launch.
Balancing cost efficiency and sustainability isn’t easy—but it’s possible. Discover how short-term forecasts and risk management strategies can help procurement leaders stay ahead of volatility while meeting sustainability goals. Learn more.
In procurement, not all data is created equal.
Cross-commodity intelligence is essential in the interconnected world of food and packaging. Fastmarkets enables you to link ingredient and packaging trends—spotting how shifts in paper pulp costs affect both packaging budgets and supply timelines.
In a market defined by rapid change and complex supply chains, clarity is non-negotiable. Fragmented data or supplier anecdotes are no substitute for independent, reliable price data. Our packaging price intelligence helps food and beverage companies cut costs, improve compliance and get to market faster.
Don’t let packaging cost surprises disrupt your strategy. Empower your team with timely, actionable intelligence for every sourcing decision. See how our packaging price intelligence can help your business drive value, efficiency and resilience.
Learn how to monitor packaging prices using cost and price indices and understand the underlying cost drivers, from material cost to labor, energy and more. Examples include cartonboard, liquid container and paper bag.