Smurfit Westrock's Pleasant Prairie, Wisconsin facility stands among the elite group of plants the company designates as 'superplants.' Spanning 595,000 square feet and built at a cost of $136 million, the facility produces approximately 3 billion square feet of corrugated boxes annually. This output is roughly three times that of a typical corrugated box plant today. Completed in April 2025 and starting production the following month, the facility now employs up to 200 people.
The facility's most striking feature is its advanced automation level. Don Sparaco, Smurfit Westrock president of corrugated packaging for North America, notes that a facility engineered like Pleasant Prairie uses approximately 60% of the labor that a traditional box plant would require. This automation enhances worker safety and production consistency. The Para Crab roll stock delivery system operates without human interaction, transporting rolls and reducing damage to paper rolls caused by human error.
At the facility's heart sits a 132-inch wide BHS corrugator. This 80% automated system produces corrugated at high speeds while monitoring processes and control functions, including temperature, steam and tension. The 'zero defect' quality control system automatically ejects defective products in real time, identifying issues such as folds, splices or bonding deficiencies. Employees oversee operations from an elevated, monitor-filled control room that overlooks the corrugator.
Location selection carries strategic importance. Positioned along the Wisconsin-Illinois border, the facility serves the greater Chicago region, considered one of the top areas in the United States for corrugated box consumption. Chicago serves as the nation's food and beverage manufacturing capital, home to giants including Conagra, Kraft Heinz and Mondelēz International. It is also one of North America's main transportation hubs and the largest and busiest freight rail hub in the U.S., handling an estimated one in four of the nation's freight trains daily.
The Wisconsin Department of Transportation granted $885,000 for a rail spur project to connect the box plant site with the Union Pacific mainline. Smurfit Westrock uses this rail access for inbound shipments of raw materials such as paper and starch. Pleasant Prairie is one of only two facilities in North America that Smurfit Westrock refers to as a superplant; the other opened in Longview, Washington in November 2023. The company incorporated dozens of best practices learned from Longview when developing Pleasant Prairie.
Key Takeaways:
1. Smurfit Westrock's 595,000-square-foot Wisconsin facility produces 3 billion square feet of corrugated boxes annually, roughly triple a typical plant's output.
2. Advanced automation enables the facility to operate with only 60% of the labor required by traditional box plants.
3. The 132-inch wide BHS corrugator runs at 80% automation with a 'zero defect' quality control system that ejects defective products in real time.
4. Strategic location on the Wisconsin-Illinois border serves the greater Chicago area, the second-largest corrugated box consumption region in the U.S.
5. Rail access connected to the Union Pacific mainline facilitates inbound shipments of raw materials such as paper and starch.
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