Established in 1967 as Imperial Plastics in Evansville, Indiana, the company became Berry Plastics when it was purchased in 1983 by Jack Berry, Sr., a Florida-based citrus grower and real estate developer. Berry opened a second manufacturing facility in Henderson, Nevada.
Berry rapidly expanded the business through acquisition of other companies. Gilbert Plastics of New Brunswick, New Jersey, a manufacturer of aerosol overcaps, was Berry's first acquisition in 1988. Beginnning in the 1990s Berry acquired a string of companies: Mammoth Containers of Genpak Corporation; Sterling Products, Inc.; Tri-Plas, Inc.; Alpha Products division of Aladdin Industries Inc.; PackerWare Corporation; Venture Packaging, Inc.; Virginia Design Packaging Corporation; Container Industries, Inc.; Norwich Injection Moulders Ltd.; Knight Engineering and Plastics, a division of Courtaulds Packaging, Inc.; Cardinal Packaging, Inc., the dairy closures product line of Clayton Corporation; Poly-Seal Corporation; Capsol S.p.A.; Pescor Plastics, Inc.; Alcoa Flexible Packaging injection molding assets of Mount Vernon Plastics Corporation; 400 series continuous threaded injection molded closures assets from CCL Plastic Packaging; Landis Plastics, Inc.; the closure assets of Euromex Plastics S.A. de C.V.; Kerr Group; Covalence Specialty Materials; Rollpak; MAC Closures; and Captive Plastics. The resulting company maintains more than 60 manufacturing facilities worldwide with nearly 14,000 employees.
Today, Berry Plastics is a manufacturer and marketer of a wide range of plastic packaging products including open top and closed top packaging, polyethylene-based plastic films, industrial tapes, medical specialties, packaging, heat-shrinkable coatings and specialty laminates.
In 2006, the investment groups, Apollo Management L.P. and Graham Partners, Inc., purchased Berry Plastics Corporation with the management team of Berry Plastics as a significant investor. In 2008 Berry Plastics Corporation acquired the assets of Erie County Plastics Corporation which had filed for bankruptcy protection.
See:
Berry Plastics corporate history
"Berry Plastics acquires Erie Plastics," Berry Plastics news release, 20 Nov 2008, available online
