Graphic Packaging to cease carton ops at OH facility

-- Converting Magazine, 4/29/2008

Marietta, GA-based Graphic Packaging International (www.graphicpkg.com) plans to discontinue folding-carton converting operations at its plant Middletown, OH, by the end of the third quarter of 2008. The company also plans to cease production at its paper-lamination plant in Elk Grove Village, IL.

Both announcements are part of Graphic Packaging's overall re-alignment and consolidation of its operations to optimize its manufacturing footprint and to achieve the $90 million in synergies identified as an outcome of the merger of Graphic Packaging and Altivity Packaging, the converter says.

The Middletown carton facility will continue to operate and support customers while its business is transitioned to other company facilities in the US. About 130 salaried and hourly employees are affected.

Graphic Packaging will continue to operate its boxboard mill, also located at the Middletown site, to produce coated-recycled paperboard for the consumer packaging industry. There are no changes planned in the Middletown mill production or employment levels.

The Elk Grove Village laminations plant will support customers while production is also transitioned to other US locations over the next several months. Twenty salaried and hourly employees at this facility at affected.