Founded in 1899, Sonoco Products Company is a United States-based international provider of diversified consumer packaging, industrial products, protective packaging, and packaging supply chain services and the world's largest producer of composite cans, tubes, and cores. With annualized net sales of approximately $4.9 billion, Sonoco has 19,900 employees in more than 335 operations in 33 countries, serving more than 85 nations. The company is headquartered in Hartsville, South Carolina, and is South Carolina's largest corporation in terms of sales. In Fortune Magazine's 2013 World's Most Admired Companies, Sonoco ranked first in financial soundness in the packaging and container sector. Sonoco is a member of the New York Stock Exchange Century Index and the S&P 400.
Operations
Sonoco is the world's largest producer of composite cans, tubes, and cores and a leading manufacturer of blow-moldedplastic containers, consumer and industrial thermoformedplastic packaging, engineered molded and extrudedplastic products, rigid paperboard containers, and convenience closures. Sonoco's operations consist of its consumer packaging businesses, including Global Rigid Paper and Closures, Global Flexibles, and Global Plastics; its Global Services division, which provides high-impact retail displays and packaging supply chain management; its Industrial Converted Products businesses, which manufacture tubes and cores and reels for the wire and cable industry, produces uncoated recycled paperboard globally for Sonoco's fiber-based packaging divisions and external converters, and includes Sonoco Recycling, one of the world's largest recyclers; and its Protective Packaging division, which produces highly engineered, custom-designed protective, temperature-assurance, and retail security packaging.
Sustainability
Sonoco was named the top global packaging company for sustainability and corporate responsibility in the 2011 and 2012 the Dow Jones Sustainability World Index. The firm also received Sustainable Asset Management Gold Class Awards in SAM's Sustainability Yearbook in 2011, 2012, and 2013, was named one of the Top 100 Corporate Citizens by Corporate Responsibility Magazine in 2011 and 2012, and has been listed among the United States's 500 largest publicly traded companies in Newsweek magazine's "Green Rankings" for three consecutive years. Sonoco Recycling annually collects approximately 3 million tons of old corrugated containers, various grades of paper, metals and plastics. The Company also provides recycling programs for many large consumer product companies in the U.S..
Administration employees
Major James Lide Coker founded the Southern Novelty Company in 1899, which became Sonoco in 1923.
Charles W. Coker, President 1970–1990, CEO 1970-1998, and chairman 1976–2005.