Berry Plastics of Lawrence Ks

Berry Plastics is a plastics extrusion and injection molding facility in good old heart of America Lawrence Kansas. This quaint and polite looking place may not seem like much from the outside or at first glance until you realize just exactly they do. Berry Plastics makes every plastic Taco Bell and McDonald's cup and container in the world. Quite an accomplishment when you step back and consider just how many that is. The plastic shot that is used to form all of their products is shipped in my rail car and then fed through augers all over the facility so it can be melted and pushed into form by the various presses, injectors, and molds, all over the plant. This is another plant that makes their own dies and molds with the help of on hand designers, engineers, and machinists. Something fun that we were informed of had to do with the monopoly game McDonald's holds every year. Over a million different game pieces are sent into the facility to be affixed to the containers and every single one has to be accounted for by not only the plant security but the outside security hired by the participating company as well. This is because in and amongst the pieces are game winning pieces. I had to mentally laugh because it seemed a bit of a conformation that the conspiracy of them knowing where the game winners were going to be was actually a little true. Berry Plastics to me was a fine reminder that manufacturing in America is still alive and thriving but just going through a little bit of a change at the moment.