A century of strength.
Started in 1903 by Martin L. Keyes to make paper pie plates out of surplus wood chips from Northeast lumber mills, Keyes has grown into one of the world's largest producers of fibre and plastic packaging materials.
Martin Keyes is said to have come up with the idea of making disposable paper plates after seeing his fellow papier-mache mill workers eating their lunch off large chips of maple veneer. He tried steaming the maple chips into plates before devising a method to turn the wood chips into pulp and using molds to form the shapes he wanted. He worked for years to develop a machine that would turn out plates and dry them efficiently. He turned to an old friend, Edmund Sprague, who had acquired an interest in the Portland Iron Works in Maine. Sprague agreed to build Keyes' machine. Keyes' first carload of paper pie plates was manufactured at a small plant in Shamut, Maine on June 24, 1904. He sold shares in the company and built a larger plant in Waterville, Maine in 1908.
Martin Keyes produced eight paper product items at his Waterville plant, including pie plates and tubs for butter, lard, pickles and other foods. When he died in 1914, his son-in-law, Dr. George Averill, gave up his medical practice and took over the company. Averill expanded the product line and production until 1927, when company stockholders agreed to sell the plant to a competitive company started by a former Keyes employee.
In the late 1930s, Keyes introduced egg trays, bottle packs, containers for light bulbs, fruit and vegetable packaging, as well as the Chinet and Savaday brand of paper plates and other disposable dinnerware. Plastic resin was added to Keyes’ manufacturing materials in the 1940s, which was used to make cafeteria trays, naval shells and pistol grips.
After World War II, Keyes continued expanding with products made at new plants in Indiana, California and Washington. Keyes was turning out millions of pieces a year in more than 400 designs of molded pulp and plastic by the 1950s. Deliveries were made throughout the world and Keyes received royalties for the use of our patents in Great Britain, Ireland, Holland, Norway, Denmark, Finland, South Africa, Argentina, Brazil and Chile. By 1975, we had subsidiaries or licensees in nearly a dozen foreign countries.
Arcata National Corporation purchased Keyes in 1978. Under Arcata's ownership, Keyes opened a new plant the following year in Alabama and doubled its apple tray production in Washington. Keyes was sold again in 1981 to Van Leer Holding Co., based in the Netherlands. The Finnish company, Huhtamaki, next purchased the company, keeping the Chinet paper dinnnerware line, but spinning off the Keyes name and fruit packaging business. Prospect Partners of Chicago purchased Keyes in 2001.
Tricor Pacific Capital purchased Keyes in 2004, and has helped lead recent acquisitions, bringing together industry leaders in the manufacture of protective recycled packaging. Apple, avocado and citrus shipping trays made from molded pulp fiber are produced at Keyes’ Wenatchee, WA plant. Also manufactured at the Wenatchee plant is molded fibre wine packaging, developed by EnviroPak Corp., which Keyes acquired in 2006. Fibre wine shippers and case pack trays offer an environmentally sound alternative to foam packaging that is not recyclable.
Acquired in 2006, Interplast™ Packaging is one of North America's leading producers of see-through egg cartons. Plastic egg cartons made from recycled #1 PET beverage bottles (the most recyclable plastic in the world and the easiest to acquire) are made at Keyes’ plant outside of Montreal, Canada.
Another recent Keyes acquisition was Wrap Pack™, a 35-year-old company that produces protective wrap for pears and other fruits and vegetables in Yakima, WA. Wrap Pack™ maintains Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) registrations for manufacturing chemically treated wraps.
Recent acquisitions have added breadth and depth to our inventory of industry-leading recycled packaging, and a name change seals the deal — Keyes Fibre Corporation is now Keyes Packaging Group.