Behind the rankings data: Thermoformers still growing

This week Plastics News publishes our annual ranking of North American thermoformers. We've got data for 227 companies. Let's take a peek at some of the numbers behind the ranking.

Our ranking includes nearly $12.5 billion in North American thermoforming sales, a 5 percent increase over last year's totals. Continuing the growing trend.

For the packaging firms responding, 65 percent had an average increase in sales of 15 percent.

For industrial thermoformers responding, 30 percent had increased sales at a significantly higher rate of 30 percent.

The cost of the top three resins were up an average of 10 percent per pound.

Lets go back in time and compare price per pound to this year:

In February 2015 polystyrene was higher by 2.2 percent, polyethylene was lower by 15 percent and ABS was higher by 6.8 percent.

These firms moved up in the ranking this year

Patrick Industries Inc. of Elkhart, Ind. moved up 65 to rank at No. 72.

Alpha Plastics Solutions Inc. of Muskego, Wis., moved up 58 to rank at No. 129.

Pioneer Molded Products of Grand Rapids, Mich., moved up 52 to rank at No. 85.

Electro-General Plastics Corp. of Columbus of Grove City, Ohio, moved up 29 to rank at No. 140.

Wurm's Woodworking Co. of New Washington, Ohio, moved up 26 to rank at No. 111.

Revere Packaging LLC of Shelbyville, Ky., moved up 22 to rank at No. 37.

Empire West Inc. of Graton, Calif., moved up 18 to rank at No. 111.

Spartech LLC of Maryland Heights, Mo., moved up 15 to rank at No. 26.

Providien Thermoforming of San Diego moved up 14 to rank at No. 61.

Ichor Systems Inc. of Fremont, Calif., moved up 12 to rank at No. 149.

Plastipak Industries Inc. of Boucherville, Quebec, moved up 11 to rank at No. 57.

The following firms have been added this year:

D6 Inc. of Portland, Ore., a packaging design and manufacturing company.

Midland Plastics Inc. of New Berlin, Wis., a custom vacuum and pressure forming company.

Nuconic Packaging LLC of Vernon, Calif., a provider of rigid plastic food packaging solutions.

Panoramic Inc. of Janesville, Wis., a stock line package and custom thermoformer.

Replex Plastics of Mount Vernon, Ohio, a provider of optical plastic lenses and mirrors.

The thermoformers rankings — and all our rankings & lists — include full ranking data, with downloads including address information for plant locations – can be found in the Plastics News store.

If you work for a company that is missing from the ranking, we would like to include you next time. Just sent a note to Hollee Keller at [email protected] or mail your information to Plastics News, P.O. Box 790, Tallmadge, Ohio 44278. All our survey forms are available online at www.plasticsnews.com/section/ranking-surveys.

Thanks to Hollee Keller for the research on this year's ranking.