Film and sheet ranking rolls past $41B

One hundred and sixty four North American Film and Sheet manufacturers are ranked in this week's special report with the top 100 appearing in our print edition.

This group of processors had related sales of $41.1 billion, up 11 percent over last year. Of that, 60 percent are exclusive to film, while 20 percent deal only in sheet. The rest are mixed, so it's no surprise to find the larger sales breakout is film with 82 percent or $33.6 billion.

Based on the survey submissions for this ranking, film producers had an average gain of 15 percent, which isn't surprising when we look at the double digit increases in material pricing over the same period. Sheet producers reported an 8 percent average gain. We started with these baselines when considering our estimates for non-responding firms.

The average sales per company is up 10.6 percent. Traditionally the Top 10 have represented the lion's share of the revenue. Sticking with that theme, I've taken a look at the average sales per company of the Top 10, since fiscal 1999. In the graph below you can see the impressive 212 percent gain over time.

I am often asked how many companies process plastics in North America, which is a simple question without a simple answer. There is no known list of every single business out there. In addition, there is a lot of crossover, such as having captive extrusion to your own thermoforming operation or doing your own recovery and recycling of material but not being known as a recycler.

Sometimes we capture more companies when acquisitions are announced. Between updates, I keep track of the news, often noting acquisition of firms we didn't already have in our ranking database.

This year's update is no exception: our footnotes reference 13 acquisitions not previously ranked. This is one reason we look at average sales per company as an indicator of sector growth rather than total sales ranked year over year.

One notable example is C-P Flexible Packaging Inc. The journey to No. 24 for C-P's Aurora, Ontario, facility began in 1992. Previously listed C-P Flexible Aurora, it has its ranking roots starting with our 1992 listing of International Innopac Inc., then ranked at No. 15 with an estimated $135 million in related sales.

The company changed names to Great Pacific Enterprises Inc., then Genpak Flexible before being sold to add to C-P's unranked operations in 2020.

In 2014 Coroplast Inc., GPE's corrugated plastic sheet business, was sold to Inteplast Group. That division included assets acquired from Spartech Corp. back in 2005. Today our listing now includes nine plants, including that one in Aurora, Coming in with estimated related sales of $400 million, C-P Flexible Packaging Inc. ranks at No. 24.

Welcome to the ranking, sheet maker, Pro Ex Extrusion Inc. of Oshkosh, Wis.

Top 5 film makers:1 Amcor Flexibles North America Inc. of Oshkosh, Wis., with $32 billion in related film sales.

2 Berry Global Inc. of Evansville, Ind., with $2.6 billion.

3 Inteplast Group of Livingston, N.J., with $2.4 billion.

4 Sealed Air Corp. of Charlotte, N.C., with $1.8 billion.

5 Novolex of Hartsville, S.C., with $1,7 billion.

Top 5 sheet companies:1 Inteplast Group of Livingston, N.J., with $1.3 billion in related sheet sales.

2 Sigma Plastics Group of Pompano Beach, Fla., with $910 million.

3 Plaskolite LLC of Columbus, Ohio, with $690 million.

4 Primex Plastics Corp. of Richmond, Ind., with $600 million.

5 Spartech LLC of Maryland Heights, Mo., with $490 million

Our biggest movers:

C-P Flexible Packaging Inc. of York, Pa., moved up 48 spaces to rank at No. 24.

Tex-Trude LP of Channelview, Texas, moved up 12 spaces to No. 59.

Versa Pak Ltd. of Celina, Ohio, moved up 12 spaces to No. 86.

Glenroy Inc. of Menomonee Falls, Wis., moved up 10 to rank at No. 74.

Paragon Films Inc. of Broken Arrow, Okla., moved up nine to No. 32.

Simona America Group of Archbald, Pa., moved up nine spaces to rank at No. 49.

Crayex Corp. of Piqua, Ohio, moved up nine spaces to rank at No. 71.

Imaflex Inc. of Montreal, Quebec, moved up nine to rank No. 77.

Profile Films of Grand Rapids, Mich., up nine to No. 80.

Dallas Plastics Corp. of Mesquite, Texas, rose nine spaces to rank at No. 86.

Make sure to check out our website for the full listings, at www.plasticsnews.com/film-sheet. The data, as a spreadsheet download, is available to data-level subscribers. For details, send a note to [email protected].

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

You can also fill out a universal survey online at www.plasticsnews.com/SubmitRankingData.

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

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