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On Oct. 20 the U.S. Commerce Department opened antidumping investigations into corrugated pizza boxes from China, Malaysia and Türkiye, plus a subsidy investigation into Türkiye. An antidumping case asks whether imports are being sold here below a fair price; a subsidy case asks whether a foreign government is propping up its exporters. Commerce estimates the dumping margins, meaning how far below fair value the boxes are priced and roughly the duty rate if it’s confirmed, at up to 297.26% for China, 116.58% for Malaysia and 92.81% for Türkiye. The case was brought by Smurfit Westrock, commonly considered the largest U.S. pizza box maker, and Pratt Industries. The first preliminary ruling, Commerce’s interim decision, which can start duty deposits (importers paying the expected import tax up front) at the border, is due Dec. 24.
The box is the cheapest thing in your order and the one thing every delivery and pickup order uses. That’s why it’s worth an hour of your attention now, before your distributor hands you a new price.
Who filed, and what’s covered
The petitions, the formal complaints asking for duties, were filed Sept. 9 by the American Pizza Boxes Manufacturers Coalition, which is Smurfit Westrock and Pratt Industries, with the United Steelworkers as co-petitioner. Pratt says about 3 billion pizza boxes are made in the U.S. each year, per Packaging Dive. The coalition first alleged dumping margins as high as 568.50% for China. Commerce’s initiation figures are lower, and they’re still estimates, not findings.
Commerce didn’t simply wave the case through. It extended its initiation deadline, the date to decide whether to open the case, by 20 days because it wasn’t clear from the petitions that the U.S. industry supported them. It initiated anyway.
The scope is broad. It covers corrugated food service boxes at least 5 inches long and wide and no more than 4 inches high, printed or plain, in B, C, D or E flute (the thickness of the wavy middle layer), including flat die-cut blanks (pre-cut boxes not yet folded). Origin is wherever the corrugated sheet was made. A box printed or folded in a third country still counts as Chinese, Malaysian or Turkish if the sheet came from there.
Türkiye is the one to watch
The import data in the petition, as summarized by Husch Blackwell, shows the three countries’ box imports up about 130% by weight from 2023 to 2025. Most of that growth came from Türkiye, which shipped about 61.6 million pounds in 2025, roughly two-thirds of the three countries’ total. China’s volume actually fell. Across all countries, the U.S. imported 155 million pounds of these boxes in 2025, worth $118.7 million, and the three named countries supplied about 58% of the value.
Commerce’s own fact sheet, using the box’s tariff code (the customs category number importers declare), puts 2025 imports at $35.2 million from Türkiye, $8.4 million from China and $5.9 million from Malaysia. Commerce warns that the code also catches some boxes outside the case, which is part of why its numbers and the petition’s don’t match.
The dates that matter to your box price
Commerce lists the International Trade Commission’s preliminary injury determination, a vote on whether the imports are likely hurting U.S. box makers, for on or around Nov. 13. If the ITC votes no, the case ends there. If it votes yes, Commerce’s preliminary subsidy ruling on Türkiye is due Dec. 24, and its preliminary dumping rulings on all three countries are due March 9, 2027. Either can be extended.
The preliminary rulings are where it starts costing money. Clark Hill notes that importers can owe cash deposits on the estimated duties from the date a preliminary determination is published. In some cases a “critical circumstances” finding, used when imports surge to beat the duties, can reach back further. Final rulings may not come until late 2027.
Duties are charged to the importer on the value of the boxes at the border, not on your shelf price. A 100% rate doesn’t double what you pay. How much reaches you depends on how much of your box price is the imported box itself, and how much is freight and your distributor’s margin. Nobody outside your supply chain can tell you that split.
The box is the only thing that goes out with every order. Know where it’s made before somebody sends you a new price.
Do the math on your own box
Start with the number you control. Divide what you spent on boxes last quarter by your boxed orders. Then see what a change would do. In a simple example, a shop that boxes 2,000 orders a month goes through 24,000 boxes a year, so every dime added to the box is $2,400 off the bottom line. On delivery orders, that’s on top of the fees we priced in the delivery math nobody does.
The price gap between boxes is already wide. The two 16-inch listings above differ by roughly double, and they aren’t the same product, channel or volume tier. WebstaurantStore doesn’t list where its box is made. Uline’s is listed as U.S.-made. A domestic box isn’t automatically the expensive option once duties are in play, and an imported one isn’t automatically the cheap one.
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The limitation: nobody publishes what share of an independent pizzeria’s boxes are imported, and we couldn’t find it. The margins above are Commerce’s estimates from the petitioners’ data, not rulings, and final rates are often different. The ITC may also find no injury on Nov. 13 and end the case. Domestic producers could also raise their prices once imports get more expensive, so watch your U.S.-made box quote after the preliminary rulings, not just the imported one.
