Thermoformer Plastic Package sold to Revere Packaging

A packaging company that can trace its lineage back more than 200 years to one of the most famous Revolutionary War figures is expanding.

Revere Packaging LLC, based in Shelbyville, Ky., is buying Plastic Package Inc. of Sacramento, Calif.

The deal pushes Revere Packaging deeper into plastics while also expanding the company's geographic footprint.

Revere Packaging, before the acquisition, had about 15 percent of its $18 million in annual sales come from plastics, which have been a complementary business to the company's aluminum foil container operations.

But plastics will now represent a majority of the company's $40 million in annual sales thanks to the $22 million in plastics-related sales from Plastic Package.

"The aluminum foil container market is pretty mature," Revere Packaging CEO David Watts said, with annual volume growth of about 1 to 2 percent annually. "Plastic food containers is growing at a much faster rate and we think has a much better long-term trajectory than aluminum. So we thought it was important to diversify towards a better growth segment of the food packaging business."

Revere's existing plastics business chiefly consisted of lids sold in conjunction with the company's aluminum containers, although the firm did offer a limited number of stand-alone products, including clamshell containers and take-out bowls and lids.

Officials at Revere Packaging met the leaders at Plastic Package a few years ago through a mutual supplier. "We've been keeping in touch over the last three years. We were very interested in acquiring their business just because of the strategic fit with the base Revere business," Watts said.

"The two companies basically go to market in all the same channels. Plastic Package has a presence in school nutrition that Revere doesn't. But aside from that, the customer channels are very similar, but there is no customer overlap. So we think we can bring a lot of value to our existing customer base with a broader product line we can now offer our existing customer base."

Many homes have had Revere Ware brand pots and pans, a business that eventually grew out of Paul Revere's copper foundry he began in 1801. And with many businesses that last generations, there have been lots of changes over time. They included the creation of Revere Packaging, which started out more than 50 years ago making disposable aluminum foil containers, after the company started focusing on aluminum.

Progress Equity Partners Ltd., a private equity firm based in Dallas, has owned the Revere Packaging business since 2011. That's when the business was sold off by Revere Industries LLC, which still owns Revere Plastics Systems LLC, the North America's 41st largest injection molder, according to Plastics News' latest rankings of that industry segment.

Stonehenge Partners Inc. of Columbus, Ohio, also invested with Progress Equity "to fund the continuing growth of both Plastic Package and Revere [Packaging]," said Blaige & Co., which advised Plastic Package in the transaction. Terms of the deal were not disclosed.

"This acquisition is a perfect fit that will allow them to expand their geographic coverage, and combine and cross-sell their aluminum and plastic packaging products," CEO Tom Blaige said in a statement.

Adding Plastic Package not only brings that company's headquarters location in Sacramento, but also sites in suburban Honolulu and La Porte, Ind.

It was just in 2015 that Plastic Package acquired Malnove Holding Co. Inc.'s plastic container and folding carton operation in Kapolei, Hawaii. And just a year before that, in 2014, Plastic Package opened a new location in La Porte to help the company grow in the Midwest and Northeast.

Revere Packaging had about 60 employees and adds about 90 workers through the purchase of Plastic Package. While the headquarters of the combined company will be in Shelbyville, Watts said no employees will lose their job because of the combination.