The Company is a worldwide leader in the design, manufacture and sale of packaging
products for consumer goods. The Company’s primary products include steel
and aluminum cans for food, beverage, household and other consumer products,
glass bottles for beverage products and metal vacuum closures and caps. These
products are manufactured in the Company’s plants both within and outside
the U.S. and are sold through the Company’s sales organization to the
soft drink, food, citrus, brewing, household products, personal care and various
other industries.
The Company’s business is organized geographically within three divisions,
Americas, Europe and Asia Pacific. Within each Division, the Company is generally
organized along product lines. The Company’s reportable segments within
the Americas Division are Americas Beverage and North America Food. The Company’s
reportable segments within the European Division are European Beverage and European
Food. The Companys Asia Pacific Division is a reportable segment which primarily
consists of beverage can operations and also includes the Companys non-beverage
can operations, primarily food cans and specialty packaging. The Companys non-reportable
segments include its European aerosol and specialty packaging business, its
North American aerosol can business and its tooling and equipment operations
in the U.S. and U.K.
Beverage Cans and Glass Bottles
The Company supplies beverage cans, ends and other packaging products to a
variety of beverage and beer companies, including Anheuser-Busch InBev, Coca-Cola,
Cott Beverages, Dr Pepper Snapple Group, Heineken, Molson Coors and Pepsi-Cola
among others. The Company’s beverage can business is built around local,
regional and global markets, which has served to develop the Company’s
understanding of global consumer expectations. The Companys glass bottle business
is based in Mexico and serves customers in the local market.
The beverage market is dynamic and highly competitive, with each packaging
manufacturer working together with its customers to satisfy consumers’
ever-changing needs. The Company competes by offering its customers broad market
knowledge, resources at all levels of its worldwide organization and extensive
research and development capabilities that have enabled the Company to provide
its customers with innovative products. The Company meets its customers’
beverage packaging needs with an array of two-piece beverage cans and ends and
metal bottle caps. Innovations include the SuperEnd® and 360 End™
beverage can ends, shaped beverage cans which include size differentiation,
such as slim cans for low calorie products or larger sizes for high volume consumption.
The Company expects to continue to add capacity in many of the growth markets
around the world.
Beverage can and glass bottle manufacturing is capital intensive, requiring
significant investment in tools and machinery. The Company seeks to effectively
manage its invested capital and is continuing its efforts to reduce the metal
content of its cans and reduce non-metal costs, including water and energy usage,
while improving production processes.
Food Cans and Closures
The Company manufactures a variety of food cans and ends, including two-piece
and three-piece cans in diverse shapes and sizes, and sells food cans to food
marketers such as Abbot Laboratories, Bonduelle, Cecab, Morgan Foods, Nestlé,
Princes Group and Simmons Foods, among others. The Company offers a wide variety
of metal vacuum closures and sealing equipment solutions to leading marketers
such as Abbot Laboratories, Danone, H. J. Heinz, Kraft, Nestlé, and Unilever,
among others, from a network of metal vacuum closure plants around the world.
The Company supplies total packaging solutions, including metal and composite
closures, capping systems and services while working closely with customers,
retailers and glass and plastic container manufacturers to develop innovative
closure solutions and meet customer requirements.
Technologies used to produce food cans include three-piece welded, two-piece
drawn and wall-ironed and two-piece drawn and redrawn. The Company also offers
its LIFTOFF™ series of food ends, including its Easylift™ full aperture
steel food can ends, and PeelSeam™ and PeelFit™, flexible aluminum
foil laminated ends. The Company offers expertise in closure design and decoration,
ranging from quality printing of the closure in up to nine colors, to inside-the-cap
printing, which offers customers new promotional possibilities, to better product
protection through Ideal Closures™, Orbit™ and Superplus™.
The Company’s commitment to innovation has led to developments in packaging
materials, surface finishes, can shaping, lithography, filling, retorting, sealing
and opening techniques and environmental performance. The Company manufactures
easy open, vacuum and conventional ends for a variety of heat-processed and
dry food products including fruits and vegetables, meat and seafood, soups,
ready-made meals, infant formula, coffee and pet food.
Aerosol Cans
The Company’s customers for aerosol cans and ends include manufacturers
of personal care, food, household and industrial products, including Friesland
Campina, Procter & Gamble, SC Johnson and Unilever, among others. The aerosol
can business is highly competitive. The Company competes by offering its customers
a broad range of products including multiple sizes, multiple color schemes and
shaped packaging.
Specialty Packaging
The Company’s specialty packaging business is primarily located in Europe
and Asia. The Company produces a wide range of of specialty containers with
numerous lid and closure variations. The Company’s specialty packaging
customers include Britvic and Nestlé among others.