In 1988, I made the decision that changed my life.
I was 23 months into a legal career when I learned that one of my firm’s clients was selling a struggling, Chicago-based packaging company. The company was doing $69 million in annual revenue but lost money every year. And at 90 years old, it wasn’t exactly a hot new business.
But I saw something special: the opportunity to get out and do something, to make something, to build something great. I saw an industry with unmet needs, and a business with unlimited potential. So I partnered with my father to buy the company, changed the name to Berlin Packaging, and got to work.
After a couple of years getting my feet wet, I developed a simple formula for success:
These three basic ideas have helped me turn Berlin Packaging into an entirely new company: The world’s only Hybrid Packaging Supplier®.
Our Hybrid model makes life easy for our customers.
We bring together the best elements of packaging manufacturers, distributors, and income-boosting service providers. We offer tens of thousands of items, and we’ll design new items for our customers at no charge. We handle inventory and logistics, with 99+% on-time delivery from our warehouses every month since June 2004. And we surround our products with services to help our customers succeed.
Berlin’s reason for being is to make our customers “Greater, Faster®.”
As a Hybrid Packaging Supplier, we don’t just sell bottles; at Berlin Packaging, we sell results. We offer our customers everything we can think of to help them attain a bigger income and better EBITDA. That starts with the highest-quality manufacturing and on-time distribution, but also includes specialized services such as design, warehousing, financing, and even management consulting. We offer these services at no charge in exchange for packaging business, knowing that we succeed when our customers succeed.
With everything Berlin Packaging offers, with every customer interaction, we follow one simple rule: Aim to Thrill.
That means surprising and delighting our customers at each opportunity, at every stage of our relationship. It means helping our 45,000+ customers uncover their own unique Noble Purpose — and then doing everything in our power to help them reach it.
Andrew Berlin acquires Alco Packaging and renames it Berlin Packaging
Berlin Global Packaging Group is established
E3 Consulting Division is established
Berlin Financial Services opens for business
Studio One Eleven begins designing for customers
Achieves 99% on-time delivery benchmark
Gains ISO 9001 certification
Partners with Investcorp private equity
Acquires All-Pak
Acquires Continental Packaging Solutions, a multinational supplier of glass and plastic containers
Acquires Lerman Container
Acquires United States Container Corporation, a California-based packaging distributor
Quality Service Division opens
Joins with Oak Hill Capital Partners
Acquires Vivid Packaging
Acquires Diablo Valley Packaging, a $125 million supplier with an emphasis on glass packaging
Acquires Bruni Glass, expanding presence in Europe, Canada, the U.S., and China
Acquires H. Erben Ltd.
Today, Berlin Packaging is a multi-national, multi-billion-dollar company featuring exceptional growth.
In fact, we’re growing 10 times faster than the packaging industry as a whole, and garnering the industry’s top customer engagement scores. One of the many benefits of partnering with us is that we quantify everything we do – from on-time delivery to product specifications to the value we add to your bottom line. We know that our success is the result of the people we have and the behaviors our team undertakes every day. By focusing on the details and embracing an optimistic spirit, we built a juggernaut in the packaging space.
