Our History

Our history dates to the 1860s when Samuel Ramsden, a young stone mason from Yorkshire, arrived in Australia with his bride to seek his fortune. He established Victoria's first paper mill, on the banks of the Yarra River, Melbourne.

Around the same time, in St. Louis, Missouri, 25-year-old Judson Moss Bemis founded bag manufacturing business, J.M. Bemis & Company. By the end of the 19th century, Bemis was among the largest enterprises of its kind in the world, managing the life-span of their products from cotton plant to finished bag.

For many years, Mr. Ramsden’s company was known as APM, or Australian Paper Manufacturers, and its products (even then) touched the daily lives of many Australians.

In the 1970s and 1980s, Amcor added a range of diverse packaging interests to its traditional papermaking activities; business partnerships and strategic acquisitions expanded and diversified the company’s activities. With this growth, the company name of APM no longer suited our rapidly evolving, energetic company.

The Company changed its name from APM to Amcor Limited to reflect the Company’s much broader range of interests than traditional pulp and paper making activities. The bold, brown logo signified paper and wood with the ‘O’ a graphic representation of a paper roll. This was an important symbolic step toward the Amcor of today.

In 2000, we demerged our paper business from our packaging businesses and began a decade of significant acquisition and growth, culminating in Amcor acquiring parts of Alcan from Rio Tinto in 2010.

In 2010 the Company unveiled its new global brand to reflect the birth of a ‘new Amcor’. The new Amcor pod was created. A combination of green and blue colours was chosen to signify Amcor’s commitment to sustainable practices. The pod consists of five rings symbolising the five core values of the Company and the collaboration between co-workers, customers and communities.

In 2019, Amcor acquired Bemis Company in an all stock combination. Combining these two complementary companies created the global leader in consumer packaging, with the footprint, scale and capabilities to drive significant value for shareholders, offer customers and employees the most compelling value proposition in the packaging industry and deliver the most sustainable innovations for the environment.