International packaging supply chains have a reliability problem that does not appear in pricing comparisons. The sample looks right, the cost is compelling, and then, consistently and predictably, execution fails. Missed deliveries, absent communication, and plant shutdowns that strand orders on the other side of the world.
Jeremy D. Bower, Founder of Givr Packaging, has spent 23 years in the U.S. corrugated packaging industry watching brands learn this lesson the hard way. In 2017, he made a deliberate strategic decision: to use only domestic suppliers, even if it meant not always winning on price. That conviction has since been validated in ways even he did not fully anticipate. “The consistency of having a domestic supply chain – you can visit it, you’re in the same time zone, you speak the same language, all of those barriers that exist on the international side just don’t exist,” Bower notes.
Tariffs Have Changed the Calculation Entirely
For most of Bower’s career, the domestic-versus-international decision was straightforward for price-sensitive buyers. International wins on cost, domestic wins on everything else. That assumption has shifted. A brand that had been offshoring a significant portion of its packaging approached Givr Packaging after experiencing delivery failures. When Bower ran the numbers on a net-delivered cost basis with their third party logistics (3PL), Givr Packaging’s pricing came in 7 to 8 cents per box cheaper, roughly 8% to 12% less than what the brand was paying from China or Turkey. The result surprised Bower himself.
Tariffs have created friction in international supply that now makes domestic pricing competitive, while retaining every advantage that has always separated local supply chains from offshore ones: no border friction, no risk of longshoremen strikes, no post-holiday staffing collapses, and the ability to audit a facility in person. The production of packaging that was once offshore is returning. The supply tightness this creates is real, but for brands that prioritize consistency and reliability, the trade-off has rarely been more favorable.
AI Has Raised the Throughput Ceiling Without Adding Headcount
After a $40,000 software investment five years ago in a vendor that ultimately went out of business, Bower approached AI with measured caution. When customers and peers pushed him toward newer tools, he spent approximately 65–80 hours over 120 days building six internal tools using Claude, Cursor, and Base44. The results were immediate. Large request for quotations (RFQs) that previously required an hour to an hour-and-a-half of manual data entry now process in 7 to 15 seconds. On a really good day, the team could complete 50 quotes – a volume that would previously have represented nearly half a month’s output.
Headcount has not decreased. The ceiling for what the same team can handle has simply risen dramatically. Staff members are actively improving the tools for their own workflows, which has created a team that understands the systems well enough to keep pushing them further. Bower’s takeaway is not that AI replaces people: it is that organizations willing to engage with it seriously can scale throughput in ways that were structurally impossible before.
The Shifts Most Supply Chain Leaders Are Not Watching
Two changes are coming that Bower believes will catch procurement and supply chain leaders unprepared:
1. The expansion of digital print into commodity packaging: Currently a meaningful but specialized segment, digital print is moving beyond high-graphics and versioning work into territory traditionally dominated by flexo, single-color regular slotted container (RSCs) printed directly off corrugators, and intricate die-cutting done digitally rather than through traditional cutting dies. Every box plant will need either trade agreements or in-house digital assets to stay competitive.
2. A structural shift in how large consumer packaged goods (CPG) brands purchase packaging: As a new generation of executives challenges the single- and dual-source commodity contract model, Bower expects major brands to increasingly work directly with specialized vendors and keep a larger portion of their buying on the open market.
The pricing loop between major integrated suppliers and industry publications that has long dictated commodity contract rates is, in his view, becoming antiquated. An informed buyer who understands the open market will find that staying fluid saves more than the supply security a contract provides, particularly now that new mill capacity from players like Green Bay Packaging and Nine Dragons has addressed the scarcity fears that drove brands into contracts during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Givr Packaging operates without customer contracts by design. The structure allows the company to seek market alternatives whenever any vendor becomes unreasonably priced, and it positions Givr Packaging squarely on the customer’s side of the table. An educated buyer, in Bower’s view, is the best possible customer because the more informed the buyer, the more clearly Givr Packaging’s value is evident.
Follow Jeremy D. Bower on LinkedIn or visit Givr Packaging for more insights on domestic corrugated packaging, supply chain resilience, and building the supplier relationships that hold up under pressure.
