Over a year, protective & void-fill is the fastest-rising packaging family: up 11.2% on average as of 4 November 2026, against 5.7% for packaging overall. The three-month picture is much flatter, at +0.1% against +0.4% for the group, with five of the ten materials up, four down and one unchanged.
Paper void fill leads the quarter by a distance at +2.3%, the joint-largest three-month gain anywhere in packaging, ahead of cardboard corner protectors at +0.7%. Air pillows gained 0.3%, protectors & ancillary and desiccant 0.2%. Loose-fill peanuts were unchanged, the one material in the family that did not move.
All four declines are in void fill and cushioning. Void fill fell 1.0%, the family's largest drop, bubble wrap 0.8%, cushioning and protective foam 0.7% each.
The annual ranking looks very different. Air pillows are up 21.6%, the largest annual gain in all of packaging, followed by bubble wrap at +16.9%, loose-fill peanuts at +16.6% and cushioning and protective foam at +15.4%. Void fill is up 9.9%. Paper void fill, at +5.0%, and cardboard corner protectors, at +2.7%, are among the smallest annual risers, alongside desiccant (+4.3%) and protectors & ancillary (+4.1%).
So the two materials that led over three months sit near the bottom over twelve, and most of the quarter's fallers sit near the top. The market notes are silent on this family, so the split between paper-based fill and cushioning rests on the indices alone.
On the product side, protective & void-fill groups cushioning such as bubble wrap and protective foam, void fill made of paper, air pillows or loose-fill, cardboard corner protectors and desiccants. Over a year, every one of the ten has gained, from +2.7% for corner protectors upward.