What is the Cost Index?

The Cost Index shows the evolution of the cash (production) cost of the packaging product based on the cost to produce the base paper(board) material used for the packaging. It shows how your contract with your packaging supplier should have evolved if it was fixed to the cost of the raw material, (paper), while keeping the % breakdown between material, converting and overhead/profit identical over the time period selected. 

In the Cost Index, you can see the cost of the different cash cost items (fiber, energy, chemicals, labor, other (incl. maintenance)), identify the highest cost factors and follow how they changed over the quarters/years. The cost data is pulled from Fastmarkets' cost benchmarking (by mill, by grade, by country or region, as selected in the REGION filter in the Index Builder):

The more detailed you can be on the mill, company or country/region, the more precise the cash cost estimate will be on the producer of your packaging material: