Silgan Holdings Inc. operates as a manufacturer of sustainable rigid packaging solutions for the world's essential consumer goods products.
The company’s products are used for a wide variety of end markets. It operates 123 manufacturing plants in North America, Europe, Asia and South America. The company’s products include:
Dispensing and specialty closures for fragrance and beauty, food, beverage, personal and health care, home care and lawn and garden products;
Steel and aluminum containers...
Silgan Holdings Inc. operates as a manufacturer of sustainable rigid packaging solutions for the world's essential consumer goods products.
The company’s products are used for a wide variety of end markets. It operates 123 manufacturing plants in North America, Europe, Asia and South America. The company’s products include:
Dispensing and specialty closures for fragrance and beauty, food, beverage, personal and health care, home care and lawn and garden products;
Steel and aluminum containers for pet and human food and general line products; and
Custom designed plastic containers for pet and human food, consumer health and pharmaceutical, personal care, home care, lawn and garden and automotive products.
The company is a leading worldwide manufacturer and supplier of dispensing and specialty closures for the fragrance and beauty, food, beverage, personal and health care, home care and lawn and garden markets. The company’s leadership position in dispensing and specialty closures is a result of its ability to provide customers with market leading innovation and high levels of quality, service and technological support. The company’s dispensing and specialty closures business provides customers with an extensive variety of dispensing systems and proprietary specialty closures solutions that ensure closure quality and safety, as well as capping/sealing equipment and detection systems to complement its product offering. The company has 62 dispensing and specialty closure manufacturing facilities located in North America, Europe, Asia, and South America, from which it serves over 100 countries throughout the world. The company also has three joint ventures for dispensing and specialty closure products in countries that it does not serve directly. In addition, the company licenses its technology for metal closures to five other manufacturers for various markets that it does not serve directly.
The company is also a leading manufacturer and supplier of metal containers in North America and Europe, and in North America it is the largest manufacturer of metal food containers with a unit volume market share in the United States in 2024 of more than half of the market. The company’s leadership in these markets is driven by its high levels of quality, service and technological support, the company’s low-cost producer position, its strong long-term customer relationships and the company’s proximity to customers through its widespread geographic presence. The company has 39 metal container manufacturing facilities located in the United States, Europe and Asia, serving over 50 countries throughout the world.
The company is a leading manufacturer and supplier of custom containers in North America for a variety of markets, including the pet and human food, consumer health and pharmaceutical, personal care, home care, lawn and garden and automotive markets. The company’s success with custom containers is largely due to its demonstrated ability to provides the company’s customers with high levels of quality, service and technological support, along with its value-added design-focused products and the company’s extensive geographic presence with 22 manufacturing facilities in the United States and Canada. The company produces custom containers from a full range of resin materials and offer a comprehensive array of molding and decorating capabilities.
The company’s customer base includes some of the world’s best-known branded consumer products companies.
On October 15, 2024, the company acquired Weener Plastics Holding B.V., or Weener Packaging, a leading producer of differentiated dispensing solutions for personal and health care and food products. Weener Packaging operates a global network of 19 facilities predominantly in Europe and the Americas, with proprietary manufacturing technologies including significant clean room capabilities. This acquisition further broadened the company’s extensive dispensing products portfolio in the personal and health care and food markets, expanded its product innovation capabilities, enhanced the company’s advanced manufacturing technologies, and added to the company’s strong customer relationships.
Strategy
The company’s strategies are to supply ‘best value’ packaging products with high levels of quality, service and technological support; maintain low-cost producer position; and expand through acquisitions and organic growth.
Business Segments
The company operates through three business segments: Dispensing and Specialty Closures, Metal Containers, and Custom Containers.
Dispensing and Specialty Closures segment
The company is a leading worldwide manufacturer and supplier of dispensing and specialty closures for the fragrance and beauty, food, beverage, personal and health care, home care and lawn and garden markets. The company’s dispensing and specialty closures business provides customers with an extensive variety of innovative dispensing system solutions, including integrated dispensing packaging solutions, and proprietary metal and plastic specialty closures that ensure closure quality and safety, as well as state-of-the-art capping/sealing equipment and detection systems to complement its specialty closures product offering. The company has 62 dispensing and specialty closures manufacturing facilities located in North America, Europe, Asia and South America, from which it serves over 100 countries throughout the world. The company also has three joint ventures for dispensing and specialty closure products in countries that it does not serve directly. In addition, the company licenses its technology to five other manufacturers for various markets that the company do not serve directly.
The company’s dispensing and specialty closures business manufactures dispensing systems for the precision dosing of fragrance and beauty, personal and health care, home care, lawn and garden and food products, such as perfume and other fragrance and beauty products; skin care, lotion, cosmetic, health care nasal spray and other topical application, deodorant, soap, hair care and other bath and body products; hard surface cleaning, professional cleaning and air and fabric care products; lawn care and other garden products; and condiments and other food products. With the company’s acquisition in 2020 of the Albea Dispensing Business, it expanded its dispensing systems portfolio, including for highly engineered pumps, sprayers and foam dispensing solutions for the beauty, fragrance and personal care markets. With the company’s acquisition in 2021 of Silgan Specialty Packaging, it further grew the company’s dispensing systems portfolio with integrated dispensing packaging solutions offerings. The company’s acquisition in 2021 of Silgan Unicep complemented its global dispensing and specialty closures business by expanding and extending the company’s precision dosing capabilities and comprehensive product offering into new and existing markets and broadened its exposure to health care and Point-of-Care diagnostics markets. With the company’s most recent acquisition in October 2024 of Weener Packaging, a leading producer of differentiated dispensing solutions, it further broadened its extensive dispensing products portfolio in the personal and health care and food markets, expanded the company’s products innovation capabilities, enhanced its advanced manufacturing technologies and added to the company’s strong customer relationships, putting it in a position to be the dispensing solutions partner of choice for the company’s markets.
The company also manufactures metal and plastic specialty closures, many of which maintain a vacuum for safety and extended shelf-life purposes, for food and beverage products, such as ready-to-drink teas, sports and enhanced drinks, dairy products, juice drinks, tomato sauce, salsa, pickles, baby food, ketchup and other condiments, preserves, soup, cooking sauces, gravies, fruits and vegetables. The company provides customers for its specialty closures with custom formulations of sealing/lining materials, designed either to minimize removal torques and enhance openability of the company’s closures or to maintain sealability of its closures, in each case to meet the unique needs of the company’s customers while also meeting applicable regulatory requirements. The company offers its customers an extensive range of decorating options for the company’s dispensing and specialty closures for product differentiation. The company also provides customers with sealing/capping equipment and detection systems to complement its specialty closures product offering. As a result of the company’s extensive range of dispensing and specialty closures, its geographic presence and the company’s focus on providing market leading innovation and high levels of quality, service and technological support, the company is uniquely positioned to serve the fragrance and beauty, food, beverage, personal and health care, home care and lawn and garden markets for all of their dispensing and specialty closure needs.
Metal Containers
The company produces custom containers from a full range of resin materials and offers a comprehensive array of molding and decorating capabilities. The company is one of the leading manufacturers of custom designed high-density polyethylene, or HDPE, and polyethylene terephthalate, or PET, containers in North America for the markets that it serves. The company is also a leading manufacturer in North America of thermoformed barrier and non-barrier bowls and trays for shelf-stable food products. The company operates 22 custom container manufacturing facilities in the United States and Canada.
The company manufactures custom designed and stock plastic containers for food and beverage products, including peanut butter, salad dressings, condiments, spices, dairy products and liquor; consumer health and pharmaceutical products, including respiratory products, gastrointestinal products, tablets, antacids, mouthwash and other health and pharmaceutical products; personal care products, including shampoos, conditioners, hand creams, lotions, liquid soap and other cosmetics and toiletries; home care products, including cleaning products; lawn and garden products; and automotive care products. In addition, the company manufactures thermoformed barrier and non-barrier bowls and trays for food products, such as pet food and soups and other ready-to-eat meals, as well as thermoformed tubs for food products. The company also manufactures plastic closures, caps, sifters and fitments for food and household products, including salad dressings, condiments, peanut butter, spices, liquid margarine, powdered drink mixes and arts and crafts supplies.
The company’s leading position in the custom container market is largely driven by its rapid response to the company’s customers’ design, development and technology support needs and its value-added, diverse product line. This product line is the result of the company’s ability to produce custom containers from a full range of resin materials using a broad array of manufacturing, molding and decorating capabilities. The company also strives to remain with and, to some extent, anticipate innovations in resin composition and applications and changes in the technology for the manufacturing of custom containers. The company benefits from its large scale and nationwide presence, as significant consolidation is occurring in many of the company’s customers’ markets. Through these capabilities, the company is well-positioned to serve its customers, who demand customized solutions as they continue to seek innovative means to differentiate their products in the marketplace using packaging.
Manufacturing and Production
As of February 1, 2025, the company operated a total of 123 manufacturing facilities in 20 different countries throughout the world that serve the needs of its customers.
Dispensing and Specialty Closures segment
The company utilizes two basic processes to produce dispensing systems and plastic closures. In the compression molded process, pellets of resin are heated, extruded and then compressed to form a shell. The shell can include a molded linerless seal or a custom formulated, compression molded sealing system. The shell can then be slit and printed depending on its end use. In the injection molded process, pellets of resin are heated and injected into a mold, forming either a shell or other dispensing systems component, such as a trigger, decorative shroud, actuator, valve or overcap. The shell can include a molded linerless seal or a custom formulated sealing system. The shell can then be slit and printed depending on its end use. In the case of a dispensing system, the dispensing system components are assembled into the dispensing system and can be printed depending on the end use of the dispensing system. To a lesser extent, the business also utilizes injection stretch blowmolding, extrusion blowmolding and injection blowmolding to manufacture integrated dispensing packages.
The manufacturing operations for metal closures include cutting, coating, lithographing, fabricating and lining. The company manufactures twist-off, lug style and press-on, twist-off steel closures and aluminum roll-on closures for glass, metal and plastic containers, ranging in size from 18 to 110 millimeters in diameter. The company employs state-of-the-art multi-die presses to manufacture metal closures, offering a low-cost, high-quality means of production. the company also provides customers of its dispensing and specialty closures business with custom formulations of sealing/lining materials, designed to optimize torque removal and enhance the openability of its closures while meeting applicable regulatory requirements.
Metal Containers segment
The manufacturing operations of the company’s metal containers business include cutting, coating, lithographing, fabricating, assembling and packaging finished cans. The company uses three basic processes to produce cans. The first two methods of producing cans start by forming a shallow cup that is then formed into the desired height using either the draw and iron process or the draw and redraw process. Using the draw and redraw process, it manufactures steel and aluminum two-piece cans, the height of which generally does not exceed the diameter. For cans the height of which is greater than the diameter, the company manufactures steel two-piece cans by using a drawing and ironing process. The third method is the traditional three-piece method that requires three pieces of flat metal to form a cylindrical body with a welded side seam, a bottom and a top. High integrity of the side seam is assured using sophisticated electronic weld monitors and coatings that are thermally cured by induction and convection processes. The company manufactures can bodies and ends from thin, high-strength aluminum alloys and steels by utilizing proprietary tool and die designs and selected can making equipment. The company also manufactures its Quick Top easy-open ends from both steel and aluminum alloys in a sophisticated precision progressive die process. The company regularly reviews its Quick Top easy-open end designs for improvements for optimum consumer preference through consumer studies and feedback.
Custom Containers Business
The company utilizes two basic processes to produce custom containers. In the extrusion blowmolding process, pellets of resin are heated and extruded into a tube. A two-piece metal mold is then closed around the tube and high-pressure air is blown into it causing a bottle to form in the mold’s shape. In the injection and injection stretch blowmolding processes, pellets of resin are heated and injected into a mold, forming a preform. The preform is then blown into a bottle-shaped metal mold, creating a bottle.
The company’s thermoformed bowls, trays and tubs are manufactured by melting pellets of resin into an extruded sheet.
The company has decorating equipment, including several of the largest sophisticated decorating facilities in the United States. The company’s decorating methods for custom containers are in-mold labeling, which applies a plastic film label to the bottle during the blowing process, and post-mold decoration. Post-mold decoration includes:
Silk screen decoration, which enables the applications of images in multiple colors to the bottle;
Pressure sensitive decoration, which uses a plastic film or paper label with an adhesive;
Heat transfer decoration, which uses a coated label applied by heat; and
Shrink sleeve labeling.
Dispensing and Specialty Closures Business
The company uses resins in pellet form, such as homopolymer polypropylene, copolymer polypropylene and HDPE, thermoplastic elastomer lining materials, processing additives and colorants in the manufacture of dispensing systems and plastic closures. The company uses tinplate and tin free steel (TFS), aluminum, organic coatings, low-metallic inks and pulpboard, plastic and organic lining materials in the manufacture of metal closures. The company has made adequate provisions to purchase sufficient quantities of these raw materials to meet its customers' requirements for the foreseeable future, despite the significant consolidation of suppliers and facility closings by suppliers and absent unforeseen events such as hurricanes or other extreme weather conditions.
The company’s supply agreements with its dispensing systems and specialty closures customers generally provide for the pass through of changes in the company’s metal and resin costs, subject in many cases with respect to resin to a lag in the timing of such pass through. For the company’s dispensing systems and specialty closures customers without long-term agreements, it has also generally increased prices to pass through increases in the company’s metal and resin costs.
Metal Containers Business
The company uses tinplated and chromium plated steel, aluminum, copper wire, organic coatings, lining compound and inks in the manufacture and decoration of its metal container products. The company’s material requirements are supplied through agreements and purchase orders with suppliers with whom it have long-term relationships. If the company’s suppliers fail to deliver under their arrangements, it be forced to purchase raw materials on the open market, and no assurances can be given that the company be able to purchase such raw materials or, if it is so able, that the company would be able to purchase such raw materials at comparable prices or terms. Although there has been significant consolidation of suppliers and facility closings by suppliers, the company has made adequate provisions to purchase sufficient quantities of these raw materials to meet the company’s customers' requirements for the foreseeable future.
The company’s metal container supply agreements with its customers provide for the pass through of changes in the company’s metal costs. For the company’s metal container customers without long-term agreements, it have also generally increased prices to pass through increases in the company’s metal costs.
Custom Containers Business
The raw materials the company uses in its custom containers business are primarily resins in pellet form, such as virgin HDPE, virgin PET, recycled HDPE, recycled PET, polypropylene and, to a lesser extent, low and medium density polyethylene. The company’s resin requirements are acquired through multi-year arrangements for specific quantities of resins with several major suppliers of resins. The price that the company pay for resin raw materials is not fixed and is subject to market pricing, which has fluctuated significantly in the past few years. The company’s custom container supply agreements with its customers provide for the pass through of changes in the company’s resin costs, subject in many cases to a short lag in the timing of such pass through. For the company’s custom container customers without long-term agreements, it have also generally increased prices to pass through increases in the company’s resin costs.
Sales and Marketing
The company’s market its products primarily by a direct sales force, including manufacturer's representatives, and for the company’s custom containers business, in part, through a network of distributors. Because of the high cost of transporting empty containers, the company’s metal containers business generally sells to customers within a 300-mile radius of its manufacturing plants.
Dispensing and Specialty Closures Business
The company is a leading worldwide manufacturer and supplier of dispensing systems and specialty closures for the fragrance and beauty, food, beverage, personal and health care, home care and lawn and garden markets. The company has 62 dispensing and specialty closure manufacturing facilities located in North America, Europe, Asia and South America, from which it serves over 100 countries throughout the world.
The company’s largest customers of its dispensing and specialty closures business include Campbell, The Coca-Cola Company, Colgate-Palmolive Company, Coty, Inc., Dairy Farmers of America, Estee Lauder Companies, The Kraft Heinz Company, or Kraft Heinz, L'Oreal S.A., LVMH Moët Hennessy Louis Vuitton, Mizkan Holdings Co., Ltd., Molson Coors Brewing Company, Mt. Olive Pickle Company, Inc., Natura & Co., Nestle S.A., or Nestle, O Boticário, PepsiCo Inc., Prairie Farms Dairy, Inc., The Procter & Gamble Company, Puig, Revlon, Inc., S. C. Johnson & Son, Inc., The Scotts Company LLC, Spectrum Brands Holdings, Inc., STADA Arzneimittel AG, Treehouse Foods, Inc. and Unilever, plc. The company has multi-year supply arrangements with many of its customers in the United States. Outside of the United States, the dispensing and specialty closures business has had long-term relationships with most of its customers. While the company has multi-year supply arrangements with some of its dispensing and specialty closures customers outside of the United States, as is common practice, many supply arrangements with customers outside of the United States are negotiated on a year-by-year basis.
The company also have joint ventures in each of Indonesia, South Africa and Thailand for dispensing and specialty closure products, each with a facility located in such country. In addition, the company’s license its technology for metal closures to five other manufacturers who supply products in Israel, South Korea, South Africa, the Indian Ocean Islands, the Philippines, Thailand and Peru.
Metal Containers Business
The company is a leading manufacturer and supplier of metal containers in North America and Europe, and in North America it is the largest manufacturer of metal food containers with a unit volume market share in the United States in 2024 of more than half of the market. The company has 39 metal containers manufacturing facilities located in the United States, Europe and Asia, serving over 50 countries throughout the world. The company’s largest customers for these products include Austria Pet Food GmbH, Campbell, Conagra Brands, Inc., Del Monte, Eagle Family Foods Group LLC, General Mills, Inc., Goya Foods, Inc., Hill's Pet Nutrition, Inc., Hormel Foods Corporation, Kraft Heinz, Mars, Incorporated, Nestle, Nortera Foods Inc., O-AT-KA Milk Products, LLC, Pacific Coast, Stanislaus Food Products Company and Tony Downs Foods Co.
The company has entered multi-year supply arrangements with most of its customers for the company’s metal containers business. The company estimates that approximately 90 percent of its projected metal container sales in 2025 will be pursuant to multi-year customer supply arrangements. Historically, the company has been successful in continuing these multi-year customer supply arrangements. In Europe, the company has metal containers business has had long-term relationships with many of its customers, although, as is common practice, many supply arrangements are negotiated on a year-by-year basis.
The company has supplied Nestle with substantially all of its U.S. metal food container requirements. The company also supplies Nestle with dispensing solutions and metal and plastic closures in North America and Europe and plastic containers in North America.
The company’s metal containers business’ sales and income from operations are dependent, in part, upon the vegetable and fruit harvests in the midwest and western regions of the United States, and to a lesser extent, in a variety of national growing regions in Europe. Because of the seasonality of the harvests, it has historically experienced higher unit sales volume in the third quarter of the company’s fiscal year and generated a disproportionate amount of its annual income from operations during that quarter.
Custom Containers Business
The company is one of the leading manufacturers and suppliers of custom designed and stock plastic containers sold in North America for a variety of markets, including the pet and human food, consumer health and pharmaceutical, personal care, home care, lawn and garden and automotive markets. The company is also a leading manufacturer and supplier in North America of thermoformed barrier and non-barrier bowls and trays for shelf-stable food products and pet food products. The company markets its custom containers in most areas of North America through a direct sales force and a large network of distributors. The company also markets certain stock plastic containers through an on-line shopping catalog.
The company’s largest customers for its custom containers business include Badia Spices Inc., Berlin Packaging LLC, Conagra Brands, Inc., General Mills, Inc., Kraft Heinz, Lactalis Canada Inc., Mars, Incorporated, McCormick & Company, Incorporated, Nice-Pak Products, Inc., Perrigo Company plc, The Procter & Gamble Company, The Scotts Company LLC, TricorBraun, Inc. and Winland Foods, Inc.
The company has arrangements to sell some of its custom containers to distributors, who in turn resell those products primarily to regional customers. Custom containers sold to distributors are generally manufactured by using generic and custom molds with decoration added to meet the end users’ requirements. The distributors’ warehouses and their sales personnel enable the company to market and inventory a wide range of such products to a variety of customers.
The company has multi-year supply arrangements with the majority of its customers for its custom containers business. In addition, many of the company’s supply arrangements with its customers are for custom containers made from proprietary molds.
Competition
Dispensing and Specialty Closures Business
The company’s dispensing and specialty closures business competes primarily with AptarGroup, Inc., Bericap Holding GmbH, Berry Global Group, Inc., Closures Systems International, Inc., Crown Holdings, Inc., Eviosys Packaging Switzerland GmbH (owned by Sonoco Products Company), Guala Dispensing Mexico, S.A. de C.V., Massilly Holding SAS and Tecnocap S.p.A.
Metal Containers Business
Of the commercial metal container manufacturers, Crown Holdings, Inc., Sonoco Products Company (including its recent acquisition of Eviosys Packaging Switzerland GmbH), Trivium Packaging and Envases Group are the company’s most significant competitors.
Custom Containers Business
The company’s custom containers business competes with a number of large national and global producers of custom containers for the pet and human food, consumer health and pharmaceutical, personal care, home care, lawn and garden and automotive markets. These competitors include Alpla Werke Alwin Lehner GmbH & Co. KG, Amcor plc, Berry Global Group, Inc., Cebal Americas, Altium Packaging LLC, Graham Packaging Company, Plastipak Holdings, Inc. and Pretium Packaging LLC.
Governmental Regulations
The company is subject to the Occupational Safety and Health Act and other federal, foreign, state and local laws regulating noise exposure levels and other safety and health concerns in the production areas of its plants.
History
Silgan Holdings Inc., a Delaware corporation, was founded in 1987. The company was incorporated in 1989.
