Ball Corporation is an American company headquartered in Broomfield, Colorado, famous for the initial production of glass jars, lids, and related products used for home canning. Since its founding in Buffalo, New York, in 1880, when it became known as the Wooden Jacket Company, the Ball Company has expanded and diversified into other business ventures, including aerospace technology, and became the world's largest producer of recyclable metal beverages and food containers.
The Ball brothers changed their business name to Ball Brothers Glass Manufacturing Company, established in 1886. Its headquarters, as well as its glass and metals manufacturing operations, was transferred to Muncie, Indiana, in 1889. The business was renamed the Ball Brothers Company 1922. and Ball Corporation in 1969. Became a publicly traded stock company on the New York Stock Exchange in 1973.
The ball went out of the home canning business in 1993 by spinning its former subsidiary (Alltrista) into a free-standing company, which changed its name to Jarden Corporation. As part of the spin-off, Jarden is licensed to use the registered trademark Ball on the home canning product line. Currently, mason jars and Newell Brands' cannery ball fixtures.
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History
Initial years
In 1880, Frank C. and Edmund B. Ball, two of Ball's five brothers, borrowed $ 200 from their uncle, George Harvey Ball, founder and first president of Keuka College, to buy the Wooden Jacket Company, a small manufacturing business in Buffalo, New York. Soon, three other brothers (William, Lucius, and George) joined Frank and Edmund in Buffalo. (Years later, the brothers replied to their uncle's initial help by providing financial support to Keuka College.)
The Ball Brothers company makes cans wrapped in wooden jackets to hold kerosene, paint, or varnish. Since the acids used to purify kerosene caused corrosion of lead, the brothers decided to use glass to insert wooden jacketed cans. Initially, they bought a glass container from a factory in Poughkeepsie, New York. Around 1885 a group of Belgian glassblowers passing Buffalo pushed the Ball brothers to build their own factory. The Ball brothers bought land in East Buffalo, where they built a two-story brick building for stamping work and a one-story frame factory for glass work. Although fires destroyed the early glass factories in Buffalo, the brothers rebuilt and expanded the business. To keep the new factory furnace operating at full capacity, the company introduced new products and made improvements to its glass and metal making processes.
Around 1884, when the brothers discovered that the patent covering the Mason Improved fruit bottle had expired, their company began making cans of cans in their glass factories. The Ball brothers "Buffalo" jars, which range in size from half a gallon to pints and midgets, were produced during sections 1884, 1885, and 1886. Jar lids were manufactured at their metal fabrication plant. Company Ball logo is embossed on the surface of jars, made of amber or aqua glass (blue-green).
On February 13, 1886, the company was incorporated as Ball Brothers Manufacturing Company. At the same time the factory in Buffalo was destroyed by fire in 1886, the brothers began considering to relocate their business closer to the supply of natural gas. While on a business trip in Cleveland, Ohio, Frank heard about a natural gas explosion in Findlay, Ohio. After visiting the city, he told Edmund about the economic benefits of using natural gas rather than coal for glass making. Edmund visited several cities in the gas field, including Muncie, Indiana. Both brothers decided to travel more broadly to investigate the possibility of building a glass factory closer to the abundant supply of natural gas. They had hesitated to extend beyond Buffalo, but decided to explore the use of natural gas as a means to expand their glass-making business.
Frank and Edmund first visited Fostoria, Ohio, where they were greeted with enthusiasm. The next stop is Bowling Green, Ohio. After spending the night in town, Edmund returned to Buffalo, but Frank stayed. After Frank was in Bowling Green for about a week, he received a telegram from James Boyce, a businessman of Muncie. Frank, already bored with Bowling Green, is ready to change and "decides to run to Muncie and see what they have to offer." When Frank recalls his initial discussion with the leaders of Muncie town, "There is nothing about the city that is particularly interesting to me, but the people are all polite, kind, and business." Frank agreed with a proposal that offered 7 hectares of land for a plant site, gas well, and $ 5,000 cash to drive the move to Muncie. In addition, city officials agree to provide railway connections to the new facilities of the brothers. In September 1887, construction began at the Muncie plant and Ball's brothers began planning to move their plants from New York. Frank remained in Muncie to set up a factory and walk, while Edmund closed the glass factory in Buffalo, then moved to Muncie to join Frank. Their brothers, William and George, remain in Buffalo to operate stamping and factory work in Bath, New York.
In 1888 the company opened its first glass facility in Muncie. On February 18 the fires began at the new factory furnace; on March 1 the first glass products were made. The first product produced at the new plant in Muncie was an oil and chimney container, not a fruit jar. In 1889 the headquarters of the Ball Company and its glass and metals manufacturing company moved to Muncie. Other Ball brothers moved to Indiana in the 1890s. George moved to Muncie in 1893, William arrived in 1897, and Lucius, the company's shareholder and a doctor, moved to Muncie in 1894.
At the end of the nineteenth century, the company continued to grow and expand, but not without experiencing some challenges. Fires at Muncie's factory and warehouse in 1891 and 1898 ruined the facility, but they were rebuilt. Despite the economic panic of 1893, the company was able to produce 22 million fruit jars for the year starting in September 1894, and 37 million jars in 1897. As natural gas supply in the region began to wane, the Ball brothers installed a gas converter to use the Indiana coal in their factory and resume manufacturing operations. The company's F.C Ball machine, patented in 1898, introduces mass production into the glass melting process and gives it a competitive market advantage. In 1905 the company produced 60 million cans of canning per year and has acquired other glass factories, extending its operations to include seven factories in addition to the main facilities in Muncie.
In the continuing difficulties of the company in Muncie, workers who were organized with Local 200 (Glass Workers) of World Industry Workers (IWW) at the main facility broke down in March 1910, with strikers demanding wage increases. A settlement was quickly reached on March 29, but the company's management reneged on the agreement and threatened to announce lockout. The strike continued, but was weakened by the refusal of engineers affiliated with the American Labor Federation to join the strike. By the end of April, the strike was gone.
Diversification
Ball has remained a family-owned business for over 90 years. Renamed to Ball Brothers Company in 1922, it is best known for producing fruit jars, caps, and related products for home canning. The company also entered into other business ventures. Because the four main components of their main product line are glass, zinc, rubber and paper canning bottles, Ball companies acquired zinc strip mills to produce metal lids for their glass jars, artificial sealing rubber rings for jars, and acquired paper mills to make packaging used in the delivery of their products. The company also acquired tin, steel, and then, plastic companies.
The Ball Company faced additional challenges and opportunities during the Great Depression and World War II. Before 1933, Ball was the largest domestic manufacturer of home canning jars. In 1939, the company produced 54% of all cans made in the US. The fall in demand for jars during the 1930s caused the Ball brothers to start producing other types of jars and bottles for commercial use, and evolved into other business lines. During World War II, the company's operations were changed to produce shells and engine parts for the military. After the war, Ball glass manufacturing business was blocked by an antitrust case in which the company was one of several defendants. The legal case was filed with the US Supreme Court. The final decision, handed down in 1947, limits Ball's ability to acquire other glass producers and other businesses producing glass-making machines without prior court approval. In 1949, the decrease in bottle canning demand caused the company to experience its first net operating loss. With legal restrictions on the company's ability to expand its glass-making business and decreasing demand for container cans, Ball's corporate executives decided that in order to grow it, it had to be more diverse in its holdings.
In the 1950s, Ball companies entered the aerospace industry. The laboratory for Ball Brothers Research Corporation was established in Boulder, Colorado, and in Muncie. The company began manufacturing aerospace equipment in 1959. The OSO-1 satellite (Orbiting Solar Observatory), designed and built for the National Aeronautics and Space Agency (NASA) with a $ 1.4 million grant, was launched into space on March 7, 1962, at Cape Canaveral, Florida. His success led to additional contracts to build more satellites, a total of seven, but not without losses. The explosion killed three workers and damaged the company's OSO-2 satellite in 1964.
The company continues to expand into other areas such as avionics, aerospace systems, and metal beverages and food containers. Renamed to Ball Corporation in 1969, it acquired Jeffco Manufacturing Company, a maker of recyclable aluminum beverage cans, and became the world's largest producer of recyclable beverage cans. Although the glass production at Muncie ceased in 1962, it continued at other Ball factories until glass manufacturing operations were finally sold in 1996.
Ball Corporation shares went public on July 13, 1972. It became a publicly traded stock company on the New York Stock Exchange in 1973. Shares began trading at $ 26 per share on the NYSE on December 17, 1973, using the BLL trading symbol.
The ball no longer produces glass canning bottles. In the early 1990s, Ball came out of the canning home business, while establishing a subsidiary named Alltrista, which consists of seven smaller Ball subsidiaries that include Ball bottles and other canning products. When Altrista Corporation became a separate company in April 1993, Ball shareholders received one share of Alltrista for every four Ball stocks. Altrista was renamed to Jarden Corporation in 2001. Jarden maintains a license to use Ball's registered trademark on the home canning product line, part of the Jarden branded consumer business. (Jarden produces lid for several brands of fruit jars at the Muncie plant and the jars are made by glass manufacturers.)
In 1998 Ball Corporation moved its corporate headquarters from Muncie to Broomfield, Colorado, where they oversee global operations as a manufacturer of plastic and metal food and beverage containers, as well as equipment manufacturers and service suppliers to the aerospace industry.
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Corporate milestone
- 1880, Frank and Edmund Ball acquire Wood Jacket Can Company, the predecessor of the Ball Corporation, in Buffalo, New York
- 1886, incorporated as Ball Brothers Glass Manufacturing Company
- 1887, new glass factory built in Muncie, Indiana; metal manufacturing operations continues in Buffalo and Bath, New York
- 1889, the company's metal completeness operation was moved to Muncie
- 1897, F. C. Ball Machine, the world's first semi-automatic glass machine, was discovered (US patent number 610515, issued in 1898)
- 1909, Correct Method to Preserve Fruit , the predecessor Blue Ball is published; it features recipes and home canning techniques.
- 1922, the name was changed to Ball Brothers Company
- 1945, a fire caused $ 500,000 in damage to Ball's number one glass factory in Muncie
- 1956, Ball formed the Ball Brothers Research Corporation to produce goods and services for the aerospace sector. It is converted into a wholly owned subsidiary, Ball Aerospace & amp; Technologies Corp., in 1995.
- 1961, Ball buys Industrial Rubber of St. Joseph, MI. which was later sold to Chardon Rubber in 1978.
- 1962, Muncie Ball glass factory closed
- 1969, company name changed to Ball Corporation
- 1973, Ball becomes public share listed on the New York Stock Exchange
- 1993, Alltrista, a subsidiary of Ball, is separated into a separate company. Renamed to Jarden Corporation in 2001, using the registered trademark Ball on the home canning product line.
- 1994, Ball started to produce PET plastic containers.
- 1995, Ball created Ball-Foster Glass Container Co., a joint venture company with Saint-Gobain.
- 1996, Ball out of the glass business, selling his interest in Ball-Foster to Saint-Gobain.
- 1998, company headquarters moved from Muncie, Indiana, to Broomfield, Colorado
- 2002, Ball acquired Schmalbach-Lubeca AG, a German beverage container company based in Germany, and created Ball Packaging Europe.
- 2005, Ball celebrates its 125th anniversary.
- 2006, Ball acquired the U.S. Can, Inc., the largest manufacturer of aerosol cans in the US.
- 2008, Ball Corporation released its first sustainability report.
- 2010, Ball acquired Aerocan S.A.S., a maker of aluminum aerosol cans and bottles, for $ 292 million.
- 2016, Ball acquires Rexam, a UK-based packaging company
Primary subsidiary
- Aerospace & amp; Technology Corp.
- European Ball Package
Environmental recordings
Ball Corporation has made improvements to its environmental record since 2006, when the company started its first formal sustainability effort. In 2008, Ball Corporation released its first sustainability report and began releasing the next sustainability report on its website. The first report was a Sustainability Awards ACCA-Ceres North American award-winner from the 2009 Best First Time Reporter award.
In the Toxic 100 list for 2004, using data from 2002, researchers at the Amherst Institute for Political Economy Research at the University of Massachusetts (PERI) identified Ball Corporation as the 59th largest producer of air pollution companies in the United States, with an estimated 4.57 million poisonous air pounds are released every year. The PERI report for 2008, using data from 2005, ranked the 54th Ball Corporation in its Toxic 100 list; The PERI report for 2010, using data from 2006, ranked 65th. The PERI study showed major pollutants including ether glycol and 1,2,4-trimethylbenzene.
Source of the article : Wikipedia
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