Greif, Inc. is an American

manufacturing Manufacturing is the creation or production of goods with the help of equipment, labor, machines, tools, and chemical or biological processing or formulation. It is the essence of the secondary sector of the economy. The term may refer ...

company based in Delaware, Ohio. Originally a manufacturer of

barrels A barrel or cask is a hollow cylindrical container with a bulging center, longer than it is wide. They are traditionally made of wooden staves and bound by wooden or metal hoops. The word vat is often used for large containers for liquids ...

, the company is now focused on producing industrial packaging and containers. In 2018, the company ranked 642 on the

Fortune 1000 {{location map+ , United States , float=right , width=400, relief=1 , caption=''Fortune'' 1000 company headquarters locations. Top 20 companies labeled, places= {{location map~ , United States , lat= 36.365378 , long= -94.217629 , label= Walmart, ...

History

The company was founded in

Cleveland Cleveland is a city in the U.S. state of Ohio and the county seat of Cuyahoga County. Located along the southern shore of Lake Erie, it is situated across the Canada–U.S. maritime border and approximately west of the Ohio-Pennsylvania st ...

in 1877 as "Vanderwyst and Greif" by Charles Greif and his partner Albert Vanderwyst. After three brothers from the Greif family joined the company, it was renamed Greif Bros. Company, and focused on

cooperage A cooper is a craftsman who produces wooden casks, barrels, vats, buckets, tubs, troughs, and other similar containers from timber staves that were usually heated or steamed to make them pliable. Journeymen coopers also traditionally made w ...

for the transportation of post-

Civil War A civil war is a war between organized groups within the same Sovereign state, state (or country). The aim of one side may be to take control of the country or a region, to achieve independence for a region, or to change government policies.J ...

goods. In 1926, the company made its first public offering as The Greif Bros. Cooperage Corporation. In 1951, the headquarters was moved from Cleveland to its current location in Delaware, Ohio. Under the leadership of John C. Dempsey, the company transitioned out of the cooperage industry and into industrial packaging, formally dropping the Cooperage from its name in 1969. By 1980, the company had approximately 100 manufacturing facilities in the United States and

Canada Canada is a country in North America. Its Provinces and territories of Canada, ten provinces and three territories extend from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific Ocean and northward into the Arctic Ocean, making it the world's List of coun ...

. In the late 1990s, and early 2000s, Greif made a significant number of purchases of packaging and industrial businesses. Most notable among these was its purchase of the industrial packaging business of Finnish company

Huhtamaeki Van Leer Oyj Van Leer Packaging is a packaging company which had 17,000 employees and generated more than 2 billion in sales globally. In May 1999, Royal Packaging Industries Van Leer N.V was acquired by rival Huhtamäki. History Van Leer Packaging was founde ...

in 2000 for $620 million, which doubled the size of the company. On February 11, 2019, Greif completed the acquisition of Caraustar Industries, a manufacturer of recycled materials and paper products with locations in the United States and Canada. Greif purchased Caraustar for $1.8 billion. Greif's 2019 investment in a production plant in Kaluga, Russia, has drawn scrutiny. In August 2023, it was announced Greif had acquired a 51% stake in the Urbana, OH-headquartered paper partitions supplier, ColePak.

References

External links

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Greif Inc. History at FundingUniverse
{{Authority control Manufacturing companies based in Ohio Delaware, Ohio Companies listed on the New York Stock Exchange Companies in the S&P 400 Packaging companies of the United States Manufacturing companies established in 1877 1877 establishments in Ohio