A tough year for growth for commodity packaging firms

To me, the S in September is for sheet, as in our annual film and sheet ranking, where we combine two similar processes into one ranking. Although the manufacturing methods differ, the products are defined and separated simply by thickness.

Most raw material costs for commodity resins declined in 2023, so making gains within this year's 159-firm ranking depends on value-added operations and acquisitions. That leaves commodity packaging makers to take the brunt of lower sales figures, resulting in a 2.5 percent contraction in ranked companies' total revenue of $40.9 billion vs. the previous year. Polyethylene, polypropylene, ABS and PVC were all down double-digit percentages, many were challenged to off-set these pass-through cost reductions to their customers.

Breaking down our totals, film accounted for $33.3 billion, or 81 percent, and sheet $7.7 billion, or 19 percent. The average sales per company was $257.4 million.

Our No. 24 company is Polyvantis GmbH, the combined listing from acrylic and polycarbonate sheet and film makers Röhm America LLC and Sabic Specialties.

Our No. 4, Berry Global Group Inc., plans to spin off its Health, Hygiene and Specialties segment as Magnera, a merger with Glatfelter Corp., whose shareholders will vote next month on whether to approve the deal.

As noted in our last update, No. 154, Tredegar Corp., has agreed to sell its flexible packaging films Terphane business to affiliates of Oben Group. More than a year later, the Brazilian merger review process is still pending.

• 36 firms are publicly held.

• The average number of employees per company is 437.

• There are 23 average lines per company, with 535 at Sigma Plastics Group with the biggest.

• 36 firms process post-consumer resins.

• 18 firm process polylactic acid (PLA).

• 655 plants were counted for the new ranking.

• 9 percent of plant locations are in the state of Texas, followed closely by Wisconsin with 6.7 percent.

• 26 percent of the $156 billion reported in all of our six processor rankings, represents film and sheet makers.

Polyvantis of Sanford, Maine, moved up 31 to rank at land at No. 24.

Gigantic Bag LLC of Summit, Miss., moved up 28 to No. 109.

Repsco Inc. of Riverbank, Calif., is up nine to rank No. 147.

Mid South Extrusion Inc. of Monroe, La., moved up seven to land at No. 58.

M&Q Packaging LLC of Schuylkill Haven, Pa., moved up seven to No. 104.

Laminados Extruidos Plásticos SA de CV of Guadalajara, Mexico, moved up seven to reach No. 117.

The full ranking can be found online at www.plasticsnews.com/film-sheet

All Access subscribers can download the data files.

What's in the download? You can find all the data collected, not just what appears in print. That includes sales breakouts, processes used and related plant location details. These downloads are in MS Excel format.

If you work for a company that is missing from the ranking, then we would like to include you next time. Just send a note to me at [email protected] or mail your information to Plastics News, P.O. Box 790, Tallmadge, Ohio 44278.

Find all our rankings and lists online at www.plasticsnews.com/businessdata.

Hollee Keller is the editorial research coordinator for Plastics News and author of the All Things Data blog. Follow her on LinkedIn.