Smurfit WestRock makes paper-based packaging, including corrugated boxes and other packaging materials used by manufacturers and retailers to ship and protect products, formed through the merger of Smurfit Kappa and WestRock to create one of the largest packaging companies in the world. Its products are essential to how goods move through supply chains, since virtually every physical product shipped or sold at retail requires some form of packaging, giving the combined company an enormous global manufacturing and distribution footprint. The merger combined Smurfit Kappa's strong European and Latin American presence with WestRock's North American operations, creating a packaging company with a broader global reach than either company had independently. Smurfit WestRock's revenue is tied to overall manufacturing and retail activity, since packaging demand rises and falls with how much product volume is being shipped and sold across the many industries it serves as customers.