Top Flexible Packaging Converters — Cornerstones of Success
According to Ampac Packaging President and CEO John Baumann, ‘quality, customer service, innovation, and people’ are the keys to the flexible packaging converter’s fast-track to prosperity.
April 2006 by Kate Sharon
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It’s an understatement to say Ampac Packaging LLC has had a successful first nine years of business. The flexible packaging converter grew from an offshoot of another business entity into a company with three main operating units—Ampac Flexibles, Retail Products, and Security Products—and 11 manufacturing facilities with approximately 80 presses. Its workforce is 815 employees strong and the company grosses more than $200 million in annual sales.
Ampac capitalized on a flourishing industry, specializing in serving the food, beverage, pharmaceutical, specialty retailers, and medical markets. Such a customer base has put the company in perfect position for further expansion, if market predictions are correct.
According to a study called “Converted Flexible Packaging,” published this past January by The Freedonia Group, the demand for converted flexible packaging is projected to increase more than 4 percent per year to $14.4 billion by 2009. Of the three main market segments expected to grow by more than 3-6 percent annually—pouches, food, and non-food—Ampac converts flexible packaging for all of them.
A brief history of growth
Ampac Packaging, at the beginning, concentrated its production efforts on performance films, security bags, and retail plastic shopping bags. As a fledgling company, Ampac earned sales of $20 million, with 208 employees and one manufacturing facility.
The company’s reputation as a quality manufacturer of retail specialty shopping bags grew and so did its sales. Ampac’s growth, which outpaced the industry, provided a springboard from which to seek acquisitions and product line extensions that would complement the core business.
By 2001, the company had quadrupled its size to $80 million in annual sales, with 440 employees. It had added a second manufacturing facility and had expanded its production into paper retail specialty shopping bags. The growth was achieved both organically and via three acquisitions that were made during that time.
Not content to rest on its laurels, Ampac continued on an aggressive growth plan. By the end of 2005, an additional five companies had been purchased, bringing the acquisition total to eight companies in seven years. The most recent acquisitions—Kapak Corp. and Flexicon, Inc.—have allowed Ampac to extend its strong foothold as a leading provider of flexible packaging structures and pouches for food, pharmaceutical, and medical applications.
Last year, Ampac crossed the $200 million mark in annual revenues—$185 million in flexible packaging sales—achieving growth figures of 20 percent annually over the past eight years.
In the global arena, Ampac Packaging has sought opportunities in what many in the flexible packaging industry deem as one of its biggest threats—globalization. “The biggest threat to North American flexible packaging companies is our preoccupation with imports as a threat to our industry, rather than seeing globalization as an opportunity,” said John Baumann, president and chief executive officer, Ampac Packaging. “We will never legislate health into our industry through tariffs and protectionism. We need to focus our effort on breaking down the international barriers that prevent us from competing in the global markets.”
Ampac capitalized on a flourishing industry, specializing in serving the food, beverage, pharmaceutical, specialty retailers, and medical markets. Such a customer base has put the company in perfect position for further expansion, if market predictions are correct.
According to a study called “Converted Flexible Packaging,” published this past January by The Freedonia Group, the demand for converted flexible packaging is projected to increase more than 4 percent per year to $14.4 billion by 2009. Of the three main market segments expected to grow by more than 3-6 percent annually—pouches, food, and non-food—Ampac converts flexible packaging for all of them.
A brief history of growth
Ampac Packaging, at the beginning, concentrated its production efforts on performance films, security bags, and retail plastic shopping bags. As a fledgling company, Ampac earned sales of $20 million, with 208 employees and one manufacturing facility.
The company’s reputation as a quality manufacturer of retail specialty shopping bags grew and so did its sales. Ampac’s growth, which outpaced the industry, provided a springboard from which to seek acquisitions and product line extensions that would complement the core business.
By 2001, the company had quadrupled its size to $80 million in annual sales, with 440 employees. It had added a second manufacturing facility and had expanded its production into paper retail specialty shopping bags. The growth was achieved both organically and via three acquisitions that were made during that time.
Not content to rest on its laurels, Ampac continued on an aggressive growth plan. By the end of 2005, an additional five companies had been purchased, bringing the acquisition total to eight companies in seven years. The most recent acquisitions—Kapak Corp. and Flexicon, Inc.—have allowed Ampac to extend its strong foothold as a leading provider of flexible packaging structures and pouches for food, pharmaceutical, and medical applications.
Last year, Ampac crossed the $200 million mark in annual revenues—$185 million in flexible packaging sales—achieving growth figures of 20 percent annually over the past eight years.
In the global arena, Ampac Packaging has sought opportunities in what many in the flexible packaging industry deem as one of its biggest threats—globalization. “The biggest threat to North American flexible packaging companies is our preoccupation with imports as a threat to our industry, rather than seeing globalization as an opportunity,” said John Baumann, president and chief executive officer, Ampac Packaging. “We will never legislate health into our industry through tariffs and protectionism. We need to focus our effort on breaking down the international barriers that prevent us from competing in the global markets.”
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