Quick Answers to Your Amcor Questions
Look, if you're looking for quick answers about Amcor—what they do, who they are, and how their materials stack up—you're in the right place. I'm a brand compliance manager, and I've spent the last four years reviewing packaging deliverables. I've seen a lot of supplier specs cross my desk. Here are the questions I get asked most often, answered directly.
What exactly is on the Amcor website?
Honestly, if you go to amcor.com, it's a pretty solid B2B portal. The site is basically a directory of their capabilities. You’ll find their big focus areas: rigid packaging for beverages and food, and flexible packaging for everything from meat to pet food. They push their sustainability report pretty hard, which is standard for a company their size now. What's actually useful is the “Products” section—you can filter by industry or material type (like PET or polypropylene). It's not the flashiest site, but it gets you to the right spec sheets. The search function works, which is more than I can say for some of their competitors.
Wait, is Berry Plastics now Amcor?
I get this one all the time. The short answer is no, but the confusion makes sense. In 2019, Berry Global acquired the RPC Group, a big European rigid plastics player. Around the same time, Amcor merged with Bemis Company. Both deals happened in the same year, both were huge, and both reshaped the industry. So people mix them up. Berry and Amcor are still separate companies and direct competitors. In our Q1 2024 quality audit, we actually did a blind comparison between Amcor's PET bottles and Berry's. They're different. The spec sheets don't lie.
What is HIC resin, and does Amcor use it?
When I compared the specs for a high-temperature fill application side-by-side, I finally understood why this matters. HIC stands for “High Impact Copolymer.” It’s a type of polypropylene resin that’s been modified to not shatter when you drop it. It’s tougher than standard homopolymer PP. Amcor absolutely uses it—especially for things like food containers that need to survive a cold warehouse floor or a bad courier. The catch is that HIC resin has a higher melt flow rate, which can affect the clarity of the final part. So you trade some optical quality for durability. That's a trade-off you gotta make consciously.
Does Amcor manufacture plastic O-rings?
Not really, not as a core product. Amcor makes the containers, not the sealing components inside the cap. They're a rigid packaging and film company. If you're asking because you need a plastic O-ring for a bottle cap, you're looking for a specialty gasket manufacturer. But—and here's the thing—the interface between the O-ring and the bottle's finish (the neck) is critical. I rejected a batch of 8,000 units once because the cap supplier's O-ring was compressing the Amcor bottle's sealing surface unevenly. The problem wasn't Amcor's bottle; it was the spec mismatch. So, they don't make the O-ring, but they absolutely need to know how you plan to seal it.
PET vs. Polycarbonate: Which one does Amcor push?
Amcor is a PET giant. They are one of the world's largest producers of PET packaging. When you see a clear plastic soda bottle or a water jug, there's a good chance Amcor made the preform. Polycarbonate (PC) is a different beast—it's tougher and more heat-resistant, but it's also heavier and has BPA concerns that have made it less popular for food contact. Based on their public sustainability reports and product launches, Amcor is all-in on PET, especially the rPET (recycled PET) push. For our 50,000-unit annual order for a new juice line, we had to choose. We went with Amcor's PET because the total cost, including the lighter shipping weight, was way better than the PC quotes we got. Plus, the recycling story is easier to sell.
Why won't Amcor sell me PET bottle preforms if I'm a small company?
Here's the thing: they will, but the setup costs might shock you. Amcor sells to large brands with massive order volumes. Their minimum order quantity for a custom preform mold is usually in the hundreds of thousands of units. I learned this the hard way. We needed a 500ml preform for a test run. Amcor quoted us a $18,000 tooling fee before we even bought a single piece of plastic. The vendor claimed it was 'industry standard.' They were right. We ended up going to a regional converter who could handle the smaller run. Amcor's scale is their advantage, and for them, small orders are a distraction. That's not a critique—it's just the reality of their business model. If you're small, you need a different supplier.