Inside Morrisette Packaging’s Bold Corrugated Revolution
At Morrisette Packaging, we exist to help you achieve your highest level of success.
We design, manufacture, and deliver packaging and process solutions that make life better for the people we collaborate with every day.
That’s not just talk.
A recent major investment in technology and manpower allows us to deliver solutions in a way no other company in North America can.
You can view a full brochure highlighting our new capabilities in digitally and flexographically printed corrugated boxes here.
Len Prazych from Board Converting News visited our offices in Greensboro, NC, and wrote a great article about what lies ahead for corrugated manufacturing and printing at Morrisette Packaging.
Here are some highlights. Make sure to head over to the Board Converting News website to read it all.
Morrisette Packaging Explodes Onto Corrugated Landscape By Len Prazych
It’s early September in Browns Summit, NC.
I am seated alongside a group of key decision-makers and talent from Morrisette Packaging as they gather in their design center to talk a bit about the future.
We’ve just finished a tour of their headquarters in Greensboro, NC, where they showed me the layout and floor plan of what they say will soon become one of North America’s premier corrugated manufacturing facilities.
As we settle in, they crack jokes with each other and share snippets of stories from their recent European road trip—the trip that led to a multi-million-dollar investment, which we are here today to discuss.
They are welcoming and casual, as they explain why they believe these major investments from Morrisette Packaging are positioning the third-generation family-owned enterprise as a market leader in the North American high graphics corrugated market.
Since its founding in 1962, the company has evolved from being a distributor of paper bags, foil liners, and tissue paper into a full-service packaging partner centered around packaging design and design thinking.
Today, Morrisette Packaging is recognized as a premier packaging design center that collaborates with companies seeking to enhance their branding, increase production efficiency, reduce overall costs, and/or automate their packaging processes.
With the addition of the high graphics corrugated manufacturing division, Morrisette Packaging is positioning itself as the premier packaging company in North America with the ability to design beautiful graphics, create innovative structures, automate processes, customize foam, and now manufacture digital or flexographic printing, gluing, cutting, and delivery – all in-house.
True vertical integration.
As a new AICC member, Morrisette Packaging may not be familiar to everyone, but with a portfolio that includes some of the finest machinery on the planet, they will be soon.
The Latest and Greatest
The two foundational machines for their new high graphics manufacturing operation are from the renowned European manufacturer Koenig & Bauer. The Koenig & Bauer|Celmacch ChromaCUT High Tech 8-color Rotary Die Cutter alone would be considered an explosive step forward, but Morrisette Packaging made the decision to invest in a second Koenig & Bauer machine – the Omega Magnus 230 Folder Gluer, the first ever to be installed in North America.
Complemented by both the single-pass Xeikon Idera Digital Printer, an Elitron Digital Die Cutter, a Brausse Eterna Flat Bed Die Cutter, and a fully autonomous conveyance system by ACS, Morrisette Packaging is taking an unrivaled position in the North American packaging landscape.
“We bought the machines together and will have succeeded in creating something no one else in this industry…or on this continent has.” says John Morrisette.
Morrisette Packaging will leverage the design capabilities of Artios’ structural packaging software, and all machine and automation centers will be controlled by Amtech Software.
Kernic Systems has been selected to provide a new scrap recovery system at Morrisette Packaging’s Browns Summit, NC facility.
In collaboration with Höcker Polytechnik, Kernic will deliver a 30,000 CFM, NFPA-compliant system designed for efficiency, safety, and plant cleanliness.
The leadership team expects to add 20 additional employees to its payroll, which they consider very lean for a project of this scale.
“This speaks to the sophistication of our equipment, as well as our material handling automation and conveyance system, which is just as sophisticated as every other piece of machinery we’ve invested in. We’ve heard operations of our size running with 50-60 people to do what we’ll be doing with a fraction of that, virtually ‘hands free.’ No one will touch the product coming off the machinery and conveyors until it is loaded onto our trucks for delivery.”
The Elitron die cutter is already on site and ready to go. The Koenig & Bauer Magnus folder gluer and the Xeikon Idera digital printer are scheduled to arrive in October, and the Koenig & Bauer Celmacch 8-color rotary die cutter will be commissioned next April.
Morrisette Packaging expects the entire corrugated sheet plant to be fully operational by June of 2026.
‘People Over Profit’
Morrisette Packaging has always been family-owned. Now, in its third generation of operation, John Morrisette, grandson of the founder, sits as President of Morrisette Packaging while his dad, Bill Morrisette Jr. remains CEO.
John seems intent on maintaining the legacy his father and grandfather have created, and that is evident in the way he speaks about not only the business but also the people who he credits as making the business what it is.
“We believe we have the best people—and now the best equipment—for the ambitious goals we’re trying to achieve in this market. It’s an ethos that has existed in this company for as long as I can remember, which is people over profit,” says John Morrisette. “We’re a family business, and that’s how we operate. We get to enjoy the luxury of having a long-term approach because after all, we’re not in the business to maximize profits, we’re in the business to maximize being profitable.”
Indeed, “People Over Profit” is something everyone at Morrisette Packaging seems to agree on. It’s a mantra passed down over the last three generations, they tell me. And sitting alongside the team, it appears to be true.
Creativity Meets Capability
“It’s been about eight years since we began the evolution into design, which has allowed us to expand our product offerings exponentially,” says John Morrisette.
He often references his company’s “material neutral” approach, which means it works with all types of packaging, from corrugated to flexible, and the constant goal is to deliver process-specific solutions to their customers.
This isn’t the first time the company has vertically integrated its operations. Morrisette Packaging took its first step into manufacturing with the establishment of its foam packaging manufacturing division two years ago.
According to Mike Bowman, Morrisette Packaging’s Technical Manager, “We buy tons of foam, then cut it, slit it, die cut it, rout it, cut it on the table, and assemble it, whatever the customer needs. We’ve dedicated about 20,000 square feet of our facility here in Browns Summit to our foam manufacturing business.
A Collaboration Into Corrugated
“Over the last three to four years, the demand for high-quality design in the printed corrugated side of our business helped us realize its tremendous potential,” says John Morrisette. “Since it had grown to be our largest segment, we asked ourselves, ‘What would vertical integration look like in this segment?’
In that time, Robbie Workman, Morrisette Packaging’s Executive Director of Packaging Design, learned about a new piece of print technology: a single-pass, high-graphic digital press.
“We’d been working in the digital space for about four or five years at that point, and our design team had organically built a very strong regional supplier partnership base,” says Workman. “The market was contracting, and we were having quality control problems, but we were really intrigued with the new digital technology and wanted to get more into it. And digital was an easier entry point into the corrugated world.”
That’s where John Morrisette asked the question, ‘If this technology exists, what other technology exists?’
The answer to John’s question was found at Drupa 2024 in Düsseldorf, Germany.
The Koenig & Bauer Connection
Within 30 days of this realization, the Morrisette Packaging team traveled to the largest print show in the world and quickly and overwhelmingly saw what else existed.
“Our eyes were opened and our perspectives expanded,” says John Morrisette. “We saw a plethora of technology that a lot of corrugated box makers in North America have never seen before. What we saw at Drupa simply didn’t exist here, mainly because it was first-generation technology.”
The real “Ah-ha” moment would come when Mike Bowman, Morrisette Packaging’s Technical Manager, visited the massive Koenig & Bauer booth. He was transfixed by the expansive graphics of the futuristic Koenig & Bauer flexographic press. Koenig & Bauer’s Kevin Erbe introduced himself and began a “selling through consultation” relationship, which the Morrisette Packaging team naturally embraced.
“Kevin described the many options and opportunities Koenig & Bauer’s European-made machinery could present to a U.S. manufacturer,” says Bowman. “Once Kevin shared his knowledge, we realized this technology could be tremendous for us.”
The Morrisette Packaging team returned to the U.S., excited about the possibilities and the opportunities of investing in the corrugated world. It began its due diligence by vetting Koenig & Bauer, as well as other suppliers who were anxious to secure the business of what was essentially a North American greenfield project.
“We spoke to our partners, brought in our CFO and other team members, and decided we needed to do some modeling,” explains John Morrisette. “We asked, ‘What does this technology really mean? How does it align with our future plans? How does it fit in the marketplace? Can we really pull this off financially? How long will it take to see an ROI?’
We couldn’t assume we would get a giant book of business right out of the gate, so what was a conservative estimate for financial success? What is an ambitious one?”
The Morrisette team continued with more modeling, more vetting, and more due diligence before arriving at the technology solution—and the supplier—that would make Morrisette Packaging’s venture into the corrugated world a success: Koenig & Bauer.
A Critical Hire And ‘Validation’
In early 2025, Morrisette Packaging hired a new Director of Manufacturing, securing the services of 40-year corrugated industry veteran Kevin O’Brien, who has been an instrumental supplier and, even more importantly, a trusted friend and ally. Kevin was the perfect choice to “shepherd” Morrisette Packaging’s much bigger endeavor and its much bigger investment in corrugated.
“A lot was at stake and we didn’t want to ‘put the cart before the horse,’” says Harrison Hood (Executive Vice President of Sales). “We needed Kevin’s buy-in on an investment of this magnitude. We needed him to validate our decision and say, ‘Yes, this equipment is going to be very complementary to your overall business, yes, this will fill a niche in this market, and yes, you are on the right track.’”
Says O’Brien, “In my four decades in the corrugated industry, I’ve never seen anything like what I saw in Italy. My expectations were exceeded. Yes, the machinery was complementary, Morrisette Packaging would indeed fill a niche in the market and yes, we were on the right track.”
The team tasked with exploring this initiative at Morrisette Packaging had high expectations and wanted to give Koenig & Bauer the opportunity to prove their claims with a press run on their ChromaCUT High Tech 8-color die cutter.
“We really wanted to push them and push the machine, so we sent our own plates prior to our visit. We also asked them to use ink from a vendor we had selected. They accommodated all our requests,” explains Robbie Workman. “We also took a team member we were elevating to the position of print supervisor to Italy for the test. With help from Koenig & Bauer’s technicians, he brought the machine up to color using our plates and ran at a speed of 10,000 sheets an hour in only 15 minutes! We were sold.”
On its path of transformational and explosive growth, Morrisette Packaging vetted a myriad of project partners and suppliers; it vetted Kevin O’Brien, its new Director of Manufacturing, and perhaps no entity was more vetted than Koenig & Bauer and its new machinery.
“The Koenig & Bauer|Celmacch brand is an extremely impactful name around the world, and we quickly discovered their machines were the best in the industry, so it made perfect sense that they would vet us, too. We were very pleased with that,” says John Morrisette. “For them to achieve their goals in the North American market, it was just as important for them to be sure we were the right buyers of their technology. The right first impression can be everything in this space, and Koenig & Bauer needed a partner they felt the most confident in to achieve that.