Who Owns Graphic Packaging International?

The brand's lineage combines several strands of American paperboard packaging. Its roots reach to Graphic Packaging Corporation, with a history dating to 1978, and to Riverwood Holding, which built a major coated paperboard and folding carton business around the Macon, Georgia mill during the 1990s.

The present operating company was formed in 2008, when Graphic Packaging Corporation merged with Altivity Packaging, itself created in 2007 from Riverwood's consumer packaging operations plus the consumer packaging business carved out of Smurfit-Stone Container. The merger created Graphic Packaging International as the operating subsidiary of the newly public Graphic Packaging Holding Company.

Under CEO Mike Doss the brand expanded through the 2010s by acquiring carton plants and competitors, building a position as the leading fiber-based consumer packaging supplier in North America. In 2021 it acquired AR Packaging, a European fiber packaging group, for roughly $1.45 billion, which added a substantial European converting network to the brand's reach. In 2024 it sold the Augusta, Georgia bleached paperboard mill to Clearwater Paper for about $711 million, concentrating the system on recycled and coated recycled board.

The defining current project is the Waco, Texas recycled paperboard mill, a roughly $1.67 billion greenfield investment substantially complete by the end of 2025. It is the largest capital project in the brand's history and is meant to supply the next generation of fiber-based packaging demand.