Suppliers
Most distributors buy on price.
We build partnerships.
When a supplier relationship is only about price, the savings stop at the invoice. Ours are long-term, data-driven, and resourced on both sides, and that is how our customers get the savings they deserve.
Why it matters
Price alone can’t deliver real savings.
A transactional buyer rebids every order and gets a transactional supplier in return. Real savings come from planning, engineering, and logistics that only work when both sides share data and commit for the long term.
| Price-only distribution | Packaging Exchange | |
| The relationship | Order by order, rebid on price | Long-term and collaborative, built beyond the unit price |
| Information | Guesswork, rush orders, and reorder spikes | Open forecasts, demand signal, and shared risk |
| Leadership | A rep and a price list | Executive sponsors on both sides, on a standing cadence |
| When things move | Escalations after the fact | Early warning and joint problem-solving |
| What the customer gets | A price that drifts back up | Savings that compound, and supply they can count on |
How we work with our supply base
One customer instead of hundreds.
We bring demand together across every customer segment we serve, then run it through a network we own and control. For a supplier that means fewer transactions, steadier volume, and a lower cost to serve.
Substrate-neutral by design
We don’t care which line it runs on. Only that it’s right for you.
A manufacturer-owned distributor has every reason to keep your boxes on its own corrugators, whether that line is the best fit or not. We are mill-agnostic and substrate-neutral, so every spec goes to the line, board grade, and plant that deliver the best total cost and service for you.
- Mill-agnostic sourcingA vast network of corrugated mills, box plants, and sheet plants across North America, so your box is never locked to one plant’s schedule, capacity, or price list.
- Buying scale, passed throughAs one of the largest corrugated buyers in North America, we negotiate at volume and pass those savings on to our customers.
- Relationships that run deepThrough Atlas Holdings, our leadership, and an advisory board who have owned, operated, and invested in corrugated businesses, we know how mills and box plants really run, and where the capacity and value are.
- The right substrate, not just the right supplierCorrugated, paperboard, film, or molded fiber: we recommend what performs best for the product, not what a plant needs to fill.
~91%of U.S. brand owners already multisource their packaging, citing cost competitiveness, shorter lead times, and geographic coverage alongside supply chain risk.1 Diversified, established supplier relationships also proved more resilient than spot buying through the 2020–22 board shortages.2
1 L.E.K. Consulting, 2026 U.S. Brand Owner Packaging Study. 2 AJOT, “Corrugated packaging and supply chain resilience”.
Deeply integrated
One of the strongest corrugated networks in packaging.
Four things no other distributor brings together: the Egan family’s decades in distribution, the pulp, paper, and packaging portfolio of Atlas Holdings, an advisory board that built and sold some of North America’s largest corrugated companies, and the buying volume to put all of it to work for our customers.
- 01The Egan legacy
More than two decades building a national packaging distributor to over $1 billion in annual revenue, with relationships across the mill and converter base that came with it.
- 02Atlas Holdings
A global industrial portfolio with integrated pulp, paper, and containerboard mills, converting plants, and distribution, giving us insight into the corrugated chain from fiber to finished box.
- 03Our advisory board
Leaders who founded, ran, and sold North America’s largest independent corrugated converters and a public paper and packaging company.
- 04Volume of buy
As one of the largest corrugated buyers in North America, we negotiate at scale and pass the savings through to our customers.
The advisory board
-
Matthew Kaplan
Manager, Stone-Kaplan Investments
Co-founder, President, CEO, and Director of KapStone Paper and Packaging, which he and Roger Stone took public in 2005 and which was acquired by WestRock in 2018. In 2000 the pair led the acquisition of Box USA, then the largest independent paper-based packaging company in the U.S.
-
Dennis Mehiel
Managing Member, Four M Investments
Co-founded Four M Corporation in 1966, later Box USA, which grew into North America’s largest independent corrugated packaging converter before its sale to International Paper in 2004. In 2006 he launched U.S. Corrugated, again building one of the nation’s largest independents, and has since developed high-capacity “Alpha” corrugated manufacturing facilities.
-
Benjamin Samuels
Chair, Leedo Cabinetry
Former CEO of a national packaging distributor he led for most of his career. Chair of Leedo Cabinetry, a 600-employee manufacturer serving multi-family construction, and a board member of Workhorse and of Saxco, a packaging distributor serving the wine and spirits industry. Director of the Samuels Family Foundation.
The partner value
What our supply partners get from us.
One customer instead of hundreds
One credit relationship, one set of terms, one PO stream, one remittance. Your order-to-cash and service load drops with every account we bring together.
Strategic, not transactional
We focus where we can win together, instead of chasing one-off transactions and the churn that comes with them.
Planning and inventory
Your product sits in our distribution centers, not your plant. Forecasts and inventory positions are shared openly, so you plan against real consumption, not reorder spikes.
Transportation and logistics
Bulk shipments inbound to us, then our own trucks and drivers handle the last mile. You ship to 25+ points instead of thousands.
Design and engineering
Package design and testing that take material and damage out of the spec, with kitting and automation behind it: capability your end customers reach through us.
PackageIQ and support
AI that proves total cost of ownership from the customer’s own data, plus an onboarding team that absorbs artwork, item setup, and day-to-day service.
Data-driven partnership
We bring the data and the people.
Our supply chain team uses 
to find the right accounts, prove the value, and plan against real demand, so we grow with our partners instead of around them.
- 01
Find the right accounts
AI builds the market map before a rep makes a call: who is in each vertical, what they run, and where the packaging spend concentrates.
- 02
Qualify against our partners
Every lead is scored against the customer profiles we have agreed with our suppliers, so the pipeline fills with accounts we can win together.
- 03
Prove the value
PackageIQ quantifies total cost from the customer’s own operating data, and sizes the opportunity before we propose.
- 04
Share the signal
Forecasts, inventory positions, and demand go back to our partners openly, so production follows real consumption.
A two-way commitment
To win in the market together.
Strategic means both sides invest. Here is what we look for in a partner, and what we commit in return.
What we look for
- Pricing that lets us compete at the account level, with a transparent, consistent mechanism behind it
- Lead times we can quote with confidence, and early warning when something moves
- Technical and field support in front of the customer, alongside our team
- Ongoing product and application training for our sales and onboarding teams
- Channel clarity: where you sell direct, where we lead, and how we share an account
What we bring in return
- Growth: every account we win becomes your volume, through a network we own and run
- Executive sponsorship matched to yours, with a standing cadence instead of a quarterly check-in
- A single, disciplined customer in place of hundreds of small ones
- Open forecasts and demand signal, so you plan production against real consumption
- Joint go-to-market where it makes sense: shared targets, shared pipeline, shared wins
The partnership cadence
Built to last, reviewed to grow.
Our longest supplier relationships go back decades. We keep them that way with executive sponsors on both sides and a working rhythm, not a quarterly check-in.
- ReviewWhat is working today, and where both sides see room to grow
- AlignAgree on the verticals, segments, and accounts we pursue together
- OperationalizePrograms, targets, owners, and a working cadence
- Raise and repeatMeasure against the baseline, raise the target, run it again
Your partnership team
- CJ KelchnerChief Supply Chain Officer
Primary executive contact for our strategic suppliers, with 15+ years building supply chain organizations and partnership programs.
- Terri GashVP of Sourcing
35+ years across core packaging categories, leading national sourcing and contract strategy.
- Mike Van SteenburghVP, Commercial Strategy
Connects our supply partners to field opportunities and shapes how we go to market together.
What we’d like to understand
- Where does distribution sit in your growth plan over the next three years?
- What does a distributor have to do to be your best customer?
- Where are you losing share today, and could our network reach it?
- What would make Packaging Exchange easy to say yes to?