Plastics Container Company Closes Two Plants

Graham Packaging Co., York, Pa., has announced it will close two plants, one in Lakeland, Fla., and the other in Montgomery, Ala., as customer volume has shifted to other locations.

Approximately 20 jobs will be affected.

The company’s McCue Road container plant in Lakeland is scheduled to close Oct. 9. Several of the 15 hourly employees will be transferred to the company’s County Line Road plant in Lakeland. The remainder will be eligible for severance packages and given an opportunity to post for jobs at company plants in other locations.

Graham Packaging’s plant in Montgomery, Ala., is scheduled to stop production Nov. 1. About a dozen employees were laid off there at the end of August. Of the remaining nine employees, four will be transferred to other plants and the rest offered severance packages.

Production of containers made at the two affected plants will be moved to other plants in Graham Packaging’s network. The company has approximately 6,300 employees in North America and 7,800 worldwide.

Graham Packaging is a leader in the design, manufacture and sale of technology-based, customized blow-molded plastic containers for the branded food and beverage, household, personal care/specialty and automotive lubricants product categories.

The company produces more than 20 billion container units annually at 83 plants in North America, Europe and South America, and had sales of $2.49 billion in 2007.