  Studies of light hadron and nuclei production are fundamental to characterize
the hot and dense fireball created in ultra-relativistic heavy ion collisions
and to investigate hadronisation mechanisms at the LHC. Observables
investigated as a function of the charged particle multiplicity in
proton-proton and proton-lead collisions have shown features not expected and
qualitatively similar to what has been observed in larger size colliding
systems. The ALICE experiment, exploiting its excellent tracking and PID
capabilities, has performed an extensive and systematic study of strange and
non-strange hadrons, short-lived hadron resonances and light
(anti-)(hyper-)nuclei. A critical overview of these results will be presented
through comparison with the statistical hadronisation model.
