YOUR BUSINESS AUTHORITY
Springfield, MO
YOUR BUSINESS AUTHORITY
Springfield, MO
Morris Packaging LLC provides sustainable and flexible packaging for a variety of markets including food, pet food and lawn and garden. Though its main customer is a Missouri pet food manufacturer, the company also makes bags for Kirkland Signature and Member’s Mark products for Costco and Sam’s Club, respectively. The corporate office is in Bloomington, Illinois, with locations there and in Minnesota and Missouri, and coming soon to Kentucky. In Missouri, its operations are housed in Jefferson City.
SBJ: What do you mean by sustainable and flexible packaging?
Angie Richardson, safety coordinator: The products are made from plastics specially engineered to provide our customers with highly effective and aesthetically appealing packaging. Morris Packaging is also an industry leader in sustainability, continuously innovating and implementing new technologies for an eco-friendlier future. We make all size bags, from a few ounces up to 50 pounds.
SBJ: What industries do you serve?
Richardson: Our primary customer is Diamond Pet Foods. They’re located in Meta, Missouri, a small town near Jefferson City. The majority of our bags are pet food – mainly dog – and we make 3.3 million bags a week in this one location.
SBJ: Why is it important to your company to manufacture its products in the Show-Me State?
Richardson: The location for the first operation facility was strategically selected. In accordance with Morris Packaging’s goal to maintain excellent service, the company established its first facility near its primary customer. The state of Missouri, as well as the more local authorities, proved to be great partners in establishing and supporting company operations. The area is also home to an impressive labor force that shares the company’s thirst for excellence.
SBJ: What is your origin story as a business?
Richardson: The owner of our company, Jim Bob Morris, grew up in Kansas and became a pro football player. He played for the Green Bay Packers; he played for the Kansas City Chiefs for a year. An injury took him out, and then he went to work as a bag broker. They brokered bags for Diamond Pet Foods. The owner of our company said, “What if I build my own plant? Can you guarantee me your business?” They said, “If you build your own plant, you can have all of our business.”
SBJ: What else is special about Morris Packaging?
Richardson: We’ve never laid anyone off. That’s one thing the owner of our company has said he will never do. He will find work – even if we slow down, he will find work for everyone. But we’ve continuously been busy; even during COVID, our production ramped up, because a lot of people were buying pets. We’ve been in production going on 12 years, and we started with one line. Right now we’ve got 19 lines, and we’re expanding. We rarely work weekends. We operate 24 hours a day, five days a week, and the owner has said that if he has to look at making our employees work six or seven days a week, he will put more lines in. I can honestly say he cares about our work-life balance.
A trio of brothers own Southway Storage LLC, which opened Oct. 7 and has 289 units to serve customers in Ozark, Nixa, Springfield and elsewhere in southwest Missouri.
