Box Barometer: Triple A Sees Pickup
By CHRIS CZIBORR
Corrugated box maker Triple A Containers Inc. has completed an expansion move to Cerritos from Buena Park with plans to add about 40 workers within a year.
“There’s no doubt the economy in general is picking up,” said Triple A President Brad McCroskey.
Box makers can serve as an economic indicator as other companies order boxes to ship their products. Triple A recorded $22 million in sales last year, a 12% jump from the previous year. And McCroskey said he expects sales to jump another 12% to 15% this year to around $25 million. The company employs 112 people.
Triple A recently moved from Buena Park to 109,000 square feet of industrial space at 16069 Shoemaker Ave. in Cerritos under a 10-year lease valued at $6.3 million.
Triple A consolidated operations from Buena Park and most of its 70,000-square-foot Orange operations in Cerritos.
The company is keeping part of its Orange facility with about a dozen workers set to stay there until March, at which point Triple A plans to move those workers to Cerritos.
Late last year, Triple A year sold its former 42,000-square-foot Buena Park site to American Box Corp., a startup rival.
Triple A also has a Mexico subsidiary, Empaques Precisos, employing 75 workers. The Mexicali-based unit supplies the Baja California market,chiefly other border plants,with boxes and packaging.
“The Mexico work is more labor intensive because of the lower labor rates there,” McCroskey said.
Triple A’s bigger clients include Deerfield, Ill.-based Baxter International Inc. as well as Irvine big-screen TV maker Mitsubishi Digital Electronics America Inc., part of Tokyo-based Mitsubishi Electric Corp., which also has a Baja plant.
