Appleton completes sale of C&H Packaging

APPLETON — Appleton has completed the sale of C&H Packaging to InterFlex Group of Wilkesboro, N.C. The terms of the sale were not disclosed. Appleton announced its intentions to sell C&H Packaging in July. The company acquired its wholly owned subsidiary in April 2003.

C&H employs about 80 people at its Merrill facility.The company prints and converts flexible plastic packaging materials the food processing, household and industrial products industries.

Appleton's chief executive officer, Mark Richards, said Appleton intends to focus its performance packaging operations on film production.

The company's film producing facilities include American Plastics in Rhinelander in northern Wisconsin, Milton in southern Wisconsin, and New England Extrusion in Turners Falls, Mass.

In its third-quarter report, Appleton said performance packaging sales had sagged 10 percent to $26.6 million compared with the same period in 2008.

At that time, Richards said the strategy throughout the recession was to stay "intensely focused" on the fundamentals of its business.

Appleton produces carbonless, thermal, security and performance packaging products, and employs about 1,300 people in the Fox Cities.

It has other manufacturing operations in Ohio and Pennsylvania and employs about 2,200 corporatewide.

It is 100 percent employee owned.