Sonoco Products Company Overview
Sonoco Products Company is a U.S.-headquartered packaging manufacturer based in Hartsville, South Carolina. Founded in 1899, Sonoco develops metal cans, aerosol packaging, rigid paper containers, cartridges, paperboard tubes and cores, uncoated recycled paperboard, protective packaging and selected industrial-plastics and specialty packaging products. Its customers span food and beverages, pet care, household products, beauty and personal care, construction, electronics, appliances and industrial manufacturing. Following extensive portfolio restructuring, Sonoco is now centered principally on metal and paper consumer packaging and industrial paper packaging rather than the broader collection of flexible, thermoformed and temperature-controlled packaging businesses it previously owned.
Sonoco's strategic positioning combines two distinct but complementary packaging models. Consumer Packaging supplies branded-product manufacturers with rigid metal and paper formats requiring barrier performance, shelf appeal and high-volume manufacturing reliability. Industrial Paper Packaging integrates recycled paperboard mills with tube, core, cone and protective-packaging conversion, creating a circular fiber system serving industrial processes. The acquisition of Eviosys materially expanded Sonoco's European metal-packaging scale, while subsequent divestitures narrowed the group around businesses where it can combine vertical integration, technology and global market positions.
Sonoco Products Company Snapshot
|
Parameter |
Information |
|---|---|
|
Company Name |
Sonoco Products Company |
|
Headquarters |
Hartsville, South Carolina, United States |
|
Founded |
1899 |
|
President and CEO |
Howard Coker |
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Ownership |
Publicly traded company |
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Primary Listing |
New York Stock Exchange |
|
Ticker |
SON |
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FY2025 Net Sales from Continuing Operations |
$7.519 billion |
|
FY2025 Adjusted EBITDA from Continuing Operations |
Approximately $1.274 billion |
|
Employees |
Approximately 22,000 |
|
Operations |
265 |
|
Countries |
37 |
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Current Reportable Segments |
Consumer Packaging; Industrial Paper Packaging |
Sonoco reported $7.519 billion of FY2025 net sales from continuing operations. Its continuing-operation adjusted EBITDA reconciliation produced approximately $1.274 billion, while the wider total-company measure including discontinued businesses was $1.324 billion. Current company disclosures report approximately 22,000 employees across 265 operations in 37 countries, and Howard Coker remains President and CEO.
Sonoco Products Company Business Structure and Competitive Position
Effective January 1, 2026, Sonoco operates with two reportable segments: Consumer Packaging and Industrial Paper Packaging. Consumer Packaging combines global metal packaging and rigid paper containers, with operations increasingly managed through Americas and EMEA/APAC regional structures. This model allows Sonoco to approach consumer brands across steel, aluminum and paper rigid-packaging substrates rather than maintaining separate product organizations. Industrial Paper Packaging includes tubes, cores, cones, uncoated recycled paperboard and related converted-paper products; the company's remaining industrial and specialty plastics business was also moved into this segment from 2026. The structure is materially simpler than Sonoco's historical portfolio and reflects management's focus on fewer, larger global packaging platforms.
Sonoco's competitive position combines substrate breadth, material conversion and vertical integration. In consumer markets, metal cans and rigid paper containers require barrier performance, shelf-life protection, decoration and filling-line compatibility. Sonoco can increasingly evaluate both paper and metal solutions within a single commercial organization. Industrial Paper Packaging has a different advantage: internally produced uncoated recycled paperboard feeds tubes, cores and other converted products used within customers' winding, converting and manufacturing processes. Engineering capabilities address torque, crush strength, dimensions and machine compatibility rather than consumer shelf appeal. Sonoco also maintains a broad intellectual-property base and technical capabilities across packaging materials and manufacturing processes, supporting customer qualification and application-specific packaging design.
Sonoco Products Company Business Segments and Revenue Analysis
|
Business Segment |
FY2025 Net Sales |
FY2025 Segment Adjusted EBITDA |
Principal Activities |
|---|---|---|---|
|
Consumer Packaging |
$4.874 billion |
$837 million |
Metal cans, aerosol packaging, rigid paper containers, closures and related rigid packaging |
|
Industrial Paper Packaging |
$2.299 billion |
$441 million |
Tubes, cores, cones, uncoated recycled paperboard and industrial converted-paper products |
Consumer Packaging represented approximately two-thirds of Sonoco's core FY2025 reportable-segment sales. Consumer segment adjusted EBITDA margin was 17.2%, while Industrial Paper Packaging achieved 19.2%.
Consumer Packaging
Consumer Packaging combines metal packaging and rigid paper containers across major global markets. Metal products include food cans, aerosol cans, ends and closures, while rigid paper packaging includes composite containers used for snacks, powdered products, refrigerated dough and other consumer applications. Following the Eviosys acquisition, Sonoco gained a substantially larger European metal-can platform, now operated as Sonoco Metal Packaging EMEA. The business increasingly uses a substrate-neutral approach, allowing commercial teams to discuss steel, aluminum and paper formats according to product-protection, cost and sustainability requirements. Differentiation comes from high-volume manufacturing, barrier and sealing technology, decoration, filling-line compatibility and the ability to serve multinational brands across multiple geographic markets.
Industrial Paper Packaging
Industrial Paper Packaging supplies paper tubes, cores, cones, uncoated recycled paperboard and protective converted-paper products used in manufacturing and material-handling processes. Core applications include films, textiles, paper, labels, tape and other wound materials, where dimensional stability, surface characteristics, crush resistance and winding performance directly affect production efficiency. Sonoco's paperboard network uses recycled fiber to produce the board that feeds downstream converting operations, creating vertical integration between recovered material, mill production and engineered cores. Sonoco states that its uncoated recycled-paperboard network has capacity exceeding two million tons, giving the business substantial internal material scale. This integration differentiates the segment from converters dependent entirely on externally sourced board.
Sonoco Products Company Global Manufacturing and Geographic Footprint
Sonoco operates a broad manufacturing system spanning North America, Europe, Latin America and Asia-Pacific. The United States remains a major base for both core businesses, combining metal-can manufacturing, rigid paper containers, recycled-paperboard mills and tube-and-core operations. Hartsville, South Carolina, remains the company's headquarters and an important center of its historical industrial-paper operations. Sonoco's location network also extends across Canada, Mexico and Latin America, supporting food, household, industrial and converting customers.
Europe became substantially more important after the acquisition of Eviosys. Sonoco's EMEA/APAC metal-packaging platform now includes operations across countries such as France, Germany, Italy, Spain, the United Kingdom, Greece, Hungary, Poland, Portugal, Turkey and Morocco, alongside additional regional markets. The company reports 46 metal-packaging plants across EMEA and APAC, providing food-can customers with regional manufacturing and technical support.
Industrial Paper Packaging follows a different network logic. Paper mills are positioned to secure recovered-fiber supply and efficiently distribute recycled paperboard, while tube and core plants operate near paper, film, textile and industrial converting customers. This proximity is important because cores are designed around customers' equipment dimensions and winding processes. Sonoco's footprint therefore combines global packaging scale with highly localized manufacturing relationships across both consumer and industrial applications.
Sonoco Products Company Mergers, Divestitures and Portfolio Transformation
Sonoco's current profile is the result of one of the most significant portfolio transformations in its recent history. The company acquired Eviosys in December 2024 in a transaction valued at approximately €3.6 billion, or $3.9 billion, creating a significantly larger metal-packaging platform and expanding its position in European food cans, ends and closures. During 2025, Eviosys was integrated and rebranded as Sonoco Metal Packaging EMEA, materially increasing Consumer Packaging sales and earnings.
Sonoco simultaneously exited businesses outside its targeted core. On April 1, 2025, it completed the sale of its Thermoformed and Flexibles Packaging business to TOPPAN Holdings for approximately $1.8 billion, using roughly $1.5 billion of after-tax proceeds to reduce debt. In November 2025, Sonoco sold ThermoSafe, its temperature-assured healthcare-packaging business, to Arsenal Capital Partners for $650 million at closing plus potential additional consideration of up to $75 million. Earlier portfolio pruning also included the sale of Protective Solutions and selected Chinese industrial operations.
Organizational simplification followed the transactions. In late 2025, Sonoco combined its global metal and rigid-paper consumer businesses under geographically organized leadership, describing the new Consumer Packaging model as a unified can platform across multiple substrates. From January 2026, remaining industrial plastics activities were absorbed into Industrial Paper Packaging, eliminating the former All Other reporting category.
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