Greif plans to permanently close a facility in Merced, California, that manufactures industrial steel drums as well as small polymer containers, eliminating 43 jobs.
The company intends to cease operations at the plant in September.
“Making the decision to close a facility is always difficult,” said CEO Ole Rosgaard in a Friday news release. “We are committed to doing everything we can to make this transition as easy as possible, including providing severance packages and career placement services.”
This closure aligns with the optimization plan executives announced on an earnings call in December, and they said at that time that plant consolidation and staff reductions could occur. Greif aims to cut $100 million in costs by the end of fiscal year 2027.
Late last year, Greif executives also described the completion of a business unit reshuffle that involved moving away from a dual-business structure — global industrial packaging, and paper packaging and services — and splitting the businesses into four material-based segments: customized polymers, durable metals, sustainable fiber and integrated solutions.
Executives said the biggest growth opportunities exist in polymer-based products, such as intermediate bulk containers and in the caps and closures business, and that’s where the company plans to focus future investments. Metals already was one of Greif’s largest business units, and it had essentially maxed out its growth prospects for products like steel drums, Rosgaard said in December. The company plans for future metals business investments to be in plant modernization and automation, as opposed to investing in segment growth.
Greif already has offloaded some facilities this year as part of the optimization. In May, it announced a plan to close a paperboard mill in Los Angeles by June, ending its coated paperboard production on the West Coast. In early July, Greif confirmed that it’s selling its containerboard business to Packaging Corporation of America. And during an earnings call in February, executives announced their intention to sell Greif’s entire 176,000-acre timberland portfolio, managed by wholly owned subsidiary Soterra.
