‘Pantry stocking’ boosts PPG packaging coatings unit
As the COVID-19 pandemic forced much of the global economy into a standstill, people were filling their cupboards with canned soups, beans and sodas to see them through months of lockdown.
The surge in demand for food and beverage cans meant that PPG’s packaging coatings operations never shut down.
“There was lots of pantry stocking. … We have kept rolling,” said Amy Ericson, senior vice president, packaging coatings, for the Downtown-based paints and coatings company.
PPG shuttered other facilities worldwide after the virus spread early this year and expects to take a hit of 30% to 35% on revenues in the second quarter.
This week, it announced costcutting actions to deal with the losses and deliver up to $170 million in annual savings.
But the packaging coatings unit — which makes resins formulated into thin film used to line food and beverage cans, as well as containers used for personal care products like shaving cream — saw pandemic-related demand rise by about 10%, Ms. Ericson said.
To fill the uptick in orders, some plants reached out for assistance from PPG business segments like automotive paints that were experiencing slowdowns.
In Germany, for example, workers from a PPG automotive coatings facility in Weingarten assisted at a packaging coatings plant in Bodelshausen.
In the Netherlands, employees from a plant in Delfzijl that makes silica for car tires helped at a packaging coatings facility in Tiel, “to make sure we could fulfill larger demand,” Ms. Ericson said.
That kind of collaboration could serve as a best-practice model as the economy emerges from COVID-19 shutdowns, she said.
Even before the pandemic, packaging coatings were considered a bright spot for growth in PPG’s portfolio.
The global market for packaging coatings is expected to reach $3.9 billion by 2023, up from $2.8 billion in 2016, according to Allied Market Research, a global market research firm.
That figure includes coatings for paper packaging as well as food, beverage and personal care product containers.
PPG doesn’t break out sales for its packaging coatings unit, which is part of the industrial coatings segment that also includes coatings for automobiles, appliances, electronics and heavy equipment.
The segment generated $1.37 billion in revenues in the first quarter, down nearly 10% from $1.5 billion in the same period of 2019.
A push by consumers for more recyclable packaging like steel and aluminum cans and containers is helping drive growth of packaging coatings, Ms. Ericson said.
Demand for “metal packaging products, especially beverages … is increasing because of a public passion about sustainability,” she said. “In time, [metal will be] a big part of the solution toward eliminating single-use plastic bottles.”
Part of the spike during COVID19 came from consumers who shopped for groceries and household items online and found that, “Cans have shelf life, some safety assurance, are convenient and come in various sizes,” Ms. Ericson said.
She oversees about 750 employees at 15 packaging coatings facilities.
She also heads up PPG’s specialty coatings and materials segment with 750 employees at six plants. That unit makes silicas used in tires, optical coatings, and materials used for lighting displays in smartphones and TVs.
The specialty materials segment has seen extra demand
during the pandemic for products like silica used in N95 respirator straps and rubber medical tubes; and materials in safety glasses worn by first responders.
Ms. Ericson, 54, brought a mix of engineering and business management experience to PPG.
Growing up in Wilmington, Del., she had strong math and science skills and wanted to be a chemical engineer like her father, who spent 45 years at DuPont.
While the University of Delaware had a top-ranked program in chemical engineering, Ms. Ericson headed to Penn State University because of opportunities to play clarinet in the school’s Blue Band and orchestra.
She launched her career at DuPont in product development before transferring to technical sales, where she learned “how a company works, makes money, and what consumers like.”
After earning a master of business administration from Harvard University, Ms. Ericson worked for Exxon and then joined Alstom, a French power company where she spent 16 years and rose to president and chief executive of its U.S. operations.
When General Electric bought Alstom, she became president of GE’s water services business.
GE sold the unit in 2017 to Suez Chemical Monitoring and Solutions, and the following year, she joined PPG.
She was immediately named to the company’s 12member operating committee, where she is one of three women.
“I think it’s paramount that PPG knows the power of diversity, and I believe PPG does,” she said.
Three female mentors — all engineers — inspired her during her early career.
“They helped me navigate a world where there is a gender gap, no doubt,” Ms. Ericson said. “If I don’t pay it forward and make an investment in the generation behind me, we’ll never see the gap narrow.”
She tries to do that by speaking to student groups about careers in science, technology, engineering and math (STEM) and recently became an industry adviser for Penn State’s College of Engineering.
Her two oldest daughters, identical twins, followed her lead in STEM as recent graduates from the University of Pittsburgh in predental studies.
Two younger daughters just finished eighth and ninth grade.
The entire family worked and studied from their Sewickley home during the shutdown — a time during which the twins helped their younger siblings with school work.
“They really ignited them,” Ms. Ericson said.