A sector that is overwhelmingly driven by the food market (fruit and vegetables, fresh and processed products, beverages, fish, meat and poultry), which in total accounts for 60.5% of the entire national production. The remaining 39.5% is for non-food (household appliances, construction, metal industry, pharmaceuticals, furniture, hygiene, cosmetics, household cleaning, etc.). Growth in food is driven by a growing focus on sustainability offered by cellulose packaging and the push of e-commerce, whose market share has risen to almost 10%.

Regarding sustainability, it is important to emphasise that Italy is the leader in Europe in post-consumer management: 91.4% of paper and cardboard packaging is sent for recovery, 85.1% for recycling (source: 27th Comieco Annual Report on the Separate Collection of Paper and Cardboard in Italy, July 2022). Not to mention that 80% of the corrugated cardboard used in packaging is composed of fibre from waste.

Geographically speaking, Lombardy remains the most productive region, accounting for 26% of Italian corrugated cardboard production. These are followed by the macro-areas Emilia Romagna-Marche (23.1%), Triveneto (15.6%), Tuscany (11.8%), South and Islands (10.3%), Lazio-Umbria-Abruzzo (6.9%) and Piedmont-Liguria-Valle D'Aosta (6.3%).