The OCC market has changed dramatically from 2025 to 2026, as much as $40/ton in some cases. But despite the market volatility, one thing hasn’t changed: most buyers remain confident that they’re getting a competitive deal.
As Trip Jobe, Vice President of Global Sales at ResourceWise, explains:
“When we speak to buyers, nearly 100% of them tell us they’re getting the best deals. And it’s not wrong to trust your teams—but we all have blind spots. The question is, what might those blind spots be costing you?”
That confidence is understandable. Procurement teams know their suppliers, their mills, and their own purchasing strategies better than anyone. But knowing your own performance isn’t the same as knowing how that performance compares with the rest of the market.
In a market where even a few dollars per ton can have a meaningful impact on margins, that distinction matters.
Transaction data can reveal surprisingly large differences in the OCC prices paid by mills operating in the same market.
For example, let’s look at a view of mills reporting their OCC transactions over one year in a single region of the country. The Recycled Fiber 360 chart shows fiber prices across all transactions submitted over a 12-month period.
As the data shows, there is roughly a $40-per-ton spread between the middle of the first and fourth quartiles.
Now consider a mill purchasing 100,000 tons per year. If its buyers are paying just $5 per ton more than comparable buyers, that translates to roughly $500,000 in additional annual cost.
The larger point is simple: not everyone can get the best deal.
So where does your mill stand? Are you among the strongest-performing buyers in the market, or could there be a blind spot in your procurement strategy?
Price benchmarking is only one part of the picture. The next question is whether your purchasing strategy is actually keeping pace with changes in the market.
As Jobe explains, “Another thing we hear often is, ‘We know how the market moves, and we stay ahead of it.’ But with the tremendous shift we’ve seen in OCC prices in 2026, timing matters. If you could see the market tightening and premiums beginning to rise, there were opportunities to adjust your purchasing strategy—whether that meant entering into more defined pricing agreements earlier or reconsidering how much volume you were buying on the open market.”
The challenge is that knowing the direction of the market does not always mean your buying strategy is positioned to take advantage of it.
In the example below, looking at the first seven months of 2026, the company’s open-market purchase prices moved both above and below its contractual pricing. In an ideal scenario, the mill would purchase fewer open-market tons when spot prices were above contract levels and more when open-market prices were below them.
But actual purchasing patterns do not always line up that neatly.
In this case, the mill purchased significantly fewer open-market tons in January. By February, however, its open-market purchases were heavier than the market average. That may suggest the mill had to overcorrect the following month, purchasing more volume at a higher cost.
That is where visibility into both price and purchasing volume becomes important. A buyer may understand what they paid in a given month, but without comparing that activity against the broader market, it can be difficult to know whether the timing of those purchases helped or hurt overall procurement performance.
The goal is not to perfectly time every market movement. That is rarely realistic. Instead, the goal is to understand whether your mix of contracted and open-market tons is working in your favor—or contributing to higher average fiber costs.
Going a step further, those purchasing decisions can directly impact your mill’s average purchase price and, ultimately, the bottom line.
In the three-month period shown below, the mill had to purchase incremental tons on the open market to meet demand. Because those additional tons were purchased at higher prices, they increased the mill’s overall fiber cost. The example illustrates how purchasing timing and volume can compound: it is not simply the price paid for an individual ton that matters, but how many tons are purchased at that price and when.
For procurement teams, this is an important distinction. You may have a good understanding of your average purchase price, but without a broader market benchmark, it can be difficult to determine whether that average reflects strong procurement performance—or whether there were opportunities to manage your purchasing mix differently.
Recovered fiber represents the highest operating cost for containerboard mills, which means relatively small purchasing improvements can have meaningful financial consequences.
Benchmarking gives procurement leaders an external reference point for evaluating performance. Instead of relying only on budgets, historical prices, published assessments, or supplier negotiations, buyers can examine their actual position relative to other transactions occurring in the market.
That information can help uncover whether higher costs are associated with pricing, contract structure, buying timing, purchasing mix, or another part of the procurement strategy.
Perhaps most importantly, benchmarking challenges assumptions.
Jobe has seen that firsthand, “This isn’t a new phenomenon. I’ve been part of teams where we honestly thought we were outperforming the market. It wasn’t until we acquired another firm and saw the data that we realized we weren’t as good as we believed.”
That experience gets to the heart of the issue. A procurement team can be performing well against its own historical results and still have opportunities to improve relative to the broader market. Without an external point of comparison, it can be difficult to know where those opportunities exist.
And when EBITDA is under pressure, that relative position matters.
As Jobe puts it, “If you’re worried about EBITDA in today’s market environment, how sure are you of your relative procurement position?”
That is exactly why external benchmarking matters.
You cannot improve a cost disadvantage you cannot see.
Recycled Fiber 360 gives mills greater visibility into their recovered-fiber procurement performance by allowing them to compare their purchasing position with transaction-based market data.
Rather than asking whether your team feels it is receiving a competitive OCC price, benchmarking provides another question:
What does the data show?
Understanding where your mill sits relative to the market can help identify procurement blind spots, evaluate purchasing strategies, and uncover potential opportunities to improve margins.
For mills operating in an environment where every dollar of EBITDA matters, knowing your relative procurement position can be just as important as knowing your absolute fiber cost.
Knowing what you pay for OCC is only part of the picture. Explore Recycled Fiber 360 to see how transaction-based benchmarking can help you understand how your procurement performance compares with the market.
How can a mill tell if it is overpaying for OCC?
Compare actual mill transaction prices with comparable transaction-based market benchmarks rather than relying solely on internal budgets or historical purchasing performance.
Why can OCC prices differ between mills in the same region?
Delivered costs can vary because of transportation, supplier relationships, volumes, quality requirements, contract structures, purchasing timing, and other market factors. Benchmarking both fiber price and delivered price helps determine whether those differences are reasonable or indicate an opportunity for improvement.
Should mills buy OCC through contracts or on the open market?
There is no universal ideal mix. The appropriate strategy depends on market conditions, supply requirements, pricing structures, and risk tolerance. Comparing indexed and open-market transactions can help mills evaluate how their purchasing mix is affecting overall fiber costs.
How does OCC procurement affect mill profitability?
Even relatively small differences in cost per ton can become substantial when applied across large annual purchasing volumes. The draft's example shows that a $5-per-ton difference across 100,000 tons would equal approximately $500,000.