Greif to close LA paperboard mill

Late last week, Delaware, Ohio-based packaging company Greif Inc. announced plans to permanently close its paperboard mill in Los Angeles as part of previously reported optimization plans across the company.

The mill is expected to cease operations in June.

“Closing this facility was not an easy decision, especially knowing the effect it has on our team members, their families and the surrounding community,” Greif President and CEO Ole Rosgaard says in a statement.

“I want to sincerely thank our Los Angeles colleagues for their hard work and commitment over the years. As we move forward, our focus is on providing meaningful support, including severance benefits and career transition resources, to help them through this change.”

The Los Angeles mill produces coated recycled paperboard (CRB) and uncoated recycled paperboard (URB), and the shutdown is expected to remove 50,000 tons of CRB and 22,000 tons of URB capacity from the market and will end Greif’s coated paperboard production on the West Coast.

Greif says the closure is a result of increased costs and limited integration opportunities, and approximately 72 employees will be impacted by the shutdown.

The move follows a closure previously announced in January in which Greif said by the end of March, it would cease production on its No. 1 paperboard machine at its URB and specialty converting site in Austell, Georgia—a move made in response to increased costs and declining demand in Greif’s major furniture, books and binders end markets.

Additionally, by the end of May, the company will permanently close its containerboard and URB mill in Fitchburg, Massachusetts, because of high operating costs and a need for significant capital investment.

Those closures reduce Greif’s containerboard capacity by 100,000 tons and URB capacity by 90,000 tons.

“We remain confident in the strength of our business and its long-term potential, Rosgaard says. “This is a strategic decision intended to strengthen our focus in key markets while enhancing the performance of both our existing mill network and broader business portfolio.”