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Sonoco makes the everyday packaging that holds, protects, and ships things people buy.
Sonoco is a packaging company. When you buy a can of soup, a jug of laundry detergent, or a prescription bottle, there's a good chance some part of what holds or protects that product came from Sonoco. The company sells to other businesses, not to you directly. Its customers are food makers, consumer goods brands, pharmacies, and industrial companies who need something sturdy and cheap to move their products around the world.
The business runs in two main pieces. The bigger one is Consumer Packaging, which makes things like paper cans for snacks, flexible packaging for food, and the tubes and cores that hold paper rolls and textiles. This is your everyday packaging workhorse. The smaller piece is Industrial Paper Packaging, which makes large cardboard boxes, paper trays, and shipping materials for factories and farms. Think of it as the company that builds both the cereal box and the crate it rides in.
Sonoco has been around since 1899, starting as a maker of paper cones for textile mills in South Carolina. Today it's a global company with sales around $6.5 billion. It buys other packaging businesses to grow, and it pays a dividend to shareholders. A recent big move was buying Eviosys, a metal can maker, for about $3.9 billion, which makes Sonoco a much larger player in metal food packaging. The company uses its cash to pay dividends, fund these deals, and chip away at debt. It's not glamorous, but packaging is one of those steady businesses the world always needs.
Saved answer · last researched 11 Oct 2026