“2024 was a milestone year for Sonoco in achieving our strategy to globally scale our metal packaging platform through the acquisition of Eviosys and to transform our portfolio to comprise more sustainable Consumer and Industrial packaging businesses through the announced divestiture of TFP and strategic review of some of our other resin-based diversified businesses,” said Howard Coker, President and Chief Executive Officer. “Our fourth-quarter results were within our expectations as we benefited from strong productivity improvements that more than offset price/cost headwinds that persisted across most of our businesses. Overall, we achieved the second best operating cash flow in our history and maintained solid operating performance due to the focused execution of our global team.” Commenting on the Company’s outlook, Sonoco’s President and CEO, Howard Coker, said, “As we enter the new year, we are focused on successfully integrating Eviosys into Sonoco Metal Packaging and achieving our two-year $100 million synergy target. We have announced the divestiture of TFP and intend to continue pursuing strategic alternatives for our remaining temperature-assured cold-chain packaging business. We intend to use proceeds from divestitures, along with projected strong free cash flow, to lower leverage to 3.0X to 3.3X Net Debt/Adjusted EBITDA by the end of 2026. We will continue to invest in our global Consumer and Industrial packaging businesses while maintaining our focus on profitability and productivity. Finally, we expect to achieve an extraordinary 100 consecutive years of returning cash to our shareholders in the form of dividends. By transforming into a simpler, stronger and more sustainable company, we have positioned Sonoco to grow projected adjusted net income attributable to Sonoco by approximately 20% year over year and adjusted EBITDA by approximately 30% year over year in 2025.”

With Koehler NexPlus®, the Koehler Group is meeting the rapidly growing demand for sustainable packaging solutions - and this extends beyond just the food industry. Within the framework of an extensive sustainability project, Südzucker is changing all of its packaging to 100% recyclable solutions over the coming years. As part of this, Südzucker has changed the packaging material of its sugar sticks to Koehler NexPlus® Seal paper.

Through close and enduring collaboration BillerudKorsnäs and Tetra Pak aim to push the figure of renewable material from wood fibre in carton packages towards 100%. Already today the figure is about 70%. New innovations to further increase the sustainability of packages are since long top of the agenda for both companies. “Our mission is to challenge conventional packaging for a sustainable future. 70 % renewable is a good start, and the only way that we can solve the major sustainability challenges we face is to do it together”, says Malin Ljung Eiborn, Director Sustainability and Public Affairs. The collaborative innovation takes the form of a number of defined projects where experts from the two companies work together. BillerudKorsnäs also work together under the auspices of Treesearch, a Swedish collaboration platform for fundamental research, knowledge and competence-building in the field of new materials and specialty chemicals from forest raw material. It involves academia, industry, private foundations and the Swedish government, and aims to turn pioneering fundamental research into high-tech innovations to meet the climate challenge.