Novel Products, Steady Growth

Challenge seems to be the operative description. "We faced a challenging environment in 2011, as dramatic resin price increases and softening customer demand impacted our performance throughout the year," said Henry Theisen, Bemis Company's president and CEO. "As we enter 2012, we are making changes to our manufacturing footprint in order to meaningfully reduce expenses and create positive profit momentum going forward." The company's Flexible Packaging Business Segment did experience an increase in net sales of 11.1 percent versus 2010. While 5.4 percent of the increase was attributed to acquisitions, the rest of the increase in net sales came from higher selling prices "partially offset by the impact of lower unit sales volumes of packaging for certain applications such as bakery, confectionery, pet food, and health and hygiene products," according to the annual report.