There is a strange mania that sometimes sweeps through corporate boardrooms — the kind that turns otherwise rational executives into true believers. It begins with a consultant’s slide, a rising curve highlighted in optimistic green, a projection of global demand that looks too good to ignore. Heads nod. A few eyes widen. Someone begins to imagine a conversion project — a grand transformation that will reposition their company for the future. And before long, a room full of seasoned operators is hypnotized by the idea that the future has already arrived, that success is inevitable, and that turning a North American machine into folding boxboard is not just smart, but visionary.
But what starts as enthusiasm quickly becomes delusion — the belief that a global trend guarantees a local opportunity, that the laws of market adoption will suspend themselves, that geography no longer matters. It’s the same kind of fever that convinces a presidential campaign that national polling momentum means they’re going to flip states they haven’t carried in fifty years. The data may be real. The story may be compelling. But the reality on the ground is unchanged — and unforgiving.
Nowhere is that disconnect more dangerous than in the fantasy surrounding folding boxboard.
For years, FBB has been painted as the savior material — sleek, sustainable, European, and backed by headlines about plastic bans, ESG scoring, and a global shift toward fiber packaging. The global numbers sparkle: Smithers projects cartonboard consumption rising from 56.3 million tonnes in 2025 to 63.1 million tonnes by 2030, with total market value surging from $132.8 billion to nearly $160 billion. Consultants wave these figures like campaign banners. They speak of megatrends, inevitability, urgency. They whisper that North America is missing out.
But beneath the theatrics lies the truth:
This is not an American market. It never has been. And trying to force it here is not strategy — it is a financial self-immolation.
The most dramatic proof came in May 2024 when Billerud abruptly canceled its billion-dollar plan to convert the Escanaba, Michigan mill into a massive FBB production center — a project once heralded as the company’s bold entrance into North American premium packaging. They didn’t retreat quietly or gradually. They detonated the plan overnight. Months of feasibility modeling, contractor estimates, supplier negotiations, and state-level incentives all collapsed under the same harsh reality: the economics do not work.
The company admitted the investment was “not sufficiently attractive,” which is corporate code for borderline catastrophic. The costs ballooned. The timeline stretched. The risk profile worsened. And the U.S. market — populated by buyers who already have SBS, CUK, and CRB — showed virtually no appetite for a massive increase in FBB supply.
Billerud walked away because they ran the numbers honestly. The question now is whether the rest of the industry is willing to do the same.
The evidence against FBB conversions in North America is overwhelming, and it begins with the companies that know the product better than anyone. Stora Enso and Metsä Board — the global titans of FBB production — have both reported brutally weak market conditions in recent months. Stora stated plainly in its annual report that “demand for consumer board was weak in 2024” and that capacity remained underutilized. This is Europe — FBB’s home court — struggling to maintain lift.
Metsä Board went even further in its latest financial results. The company admitted that year-to-date delivery volumes for FBB are down 9%, that capacity utilization is below long-term averages, and that supply has increased while demand has not kept pace — the lethal combination that destroys margins and balance sheets. They also acknowledged that attempts to raise prices have only been partially successful, even in markets traditionally more tolerant of premium pricing.
And then comes the knockout blow: the United States.
In August, a 15% tariff landed on European FBB shipped into the U.S., instantly wiping out what little margin might have existed. Metsä Board, whose Husum mill was designed heavily around American buyers, reported that U.S. delivery volumes had already weakened in the prior quarter and have not recovered since. They also stated the single most damning truth in the entire debate: U.S. packaging buyers can and do substitute FBB with heavier, locally available materials. In other words, when push comes to shove, they simply don’t need it.
This is the core of the reality no one wants to face:
FBB is not an American product — it is a European regulatory artifact.
It thrives where plastic bans and sustainability mandates force structural change. It succeeds where consumer culture prioritizes ecological branding above cost competitiveness. It scales where buyers pay for fiber-first packaging as a political and social statement. In Europe, it is practically a civic religion. In North America, it’s a curiosity.
That’s why every meaningful new FBB machine is being built in Brazil, China, or Southeast Asia — markets with massive demand growth, population expansion, and regulatory pressure. Not one leading FBB producer has announced a major North American greenfield or conversion. Not one. Not Stora. Not Metsä. Not Mayr-Melnhof. Not Klabin. Not APP.
The only company that tried it — Billerud — had to abandon the project before ground was broken.
And yet, rumblings continue. Management teams in a handful of North American companies are again whispering about “evaluating premium substrates” and “exploring strategic flexibility in high-value board.” It’s the same vague, consultant-constructed language that precedes enormously expensive mistakes.
The irony is almost too perfect: the region with the world’s best access to virgin fiber, the lowest energy costs, and some of the strongest SBS and CRB assets on Earth is the last region that should consider chasing a product that fails to fit its market structure. To repurpose a North American mill into folding boxboard today is to ignore every major signal — economic, commercial, geographic, and strategic.
There is no domestic demand base waiting to absorb the tonnage.
There is no pricing power.
There is only risk, and risk without reward is not strategy — it is gambling.
Escanaba should have been the cautionary tale that ended this fantasy. Instead, too many decision-makers continue to cling to the dream that global growth means local inevitability. It does not. It never has.
The smart companies will recognize this moment for what it is:
The last clear warning before someone burns a billion dollars trying to build a market that does not exist.
Until North America undergoes a regulatory revolution similar to the EU — and there is absolutely no sign of that on any political horizon — folding boxboard belongs somewhere else. Not here. Not now. And not at the cost of a conversion project that could cripple a balance sheet and weaken an entire company for a decade.
Some opportunities are golden.
Some are illusions.
And some are traps.
Folding boxboard in North America is the third.