Some of the most interesting businesses in Tucker are the ones you have no idea even exist. Such is the case of International Paper, a major multi-national brand most have likely heard of, but one that most people wouldn’t know has a presence here in Tucker.
“We have plants internationally; Asia, Europe, Mexico and the United States, of course,” explains Chance Nesbitt, Manufacturing Manager at IP’s Tucker location. “We’re a pre-print facility. So, we get…six- [or] eight-thousand pound rolls of paper and we unwind those rolls. We put the print on it…wind them back up and then we send it to our box plants. We turn those into boxes and then sell it to the end user.”
Those boxes can house any type of consumer product found in just about any supermarket or big box store. It’s another example of something created in Tucker going all over the planet.
“I’ve been with IP for 11 years,” Nesbitt says. “Every time I go into the grocery store, I pick a box up, turn it over and look and see if we made that box.”
While those boxes come from trees, IP looks to be a good global citizen. They have a longstanding formula to ensure that the company is as environmentally friendly as possible, while also having enough resources to continue doing business.
“We make boxes that are 100 percent recyclable,” Nesbitt says. “So, we’re trying to feed back into the planet. And then for every one tree that we cut down, we plant seven more trees to keep it going.”
The Tucker factory employs about 100 people, including many who have worked at the plant for several decades. Nesbitt says being located so centrally in Tucker has been great for his workers, but also good for the bottom line.
“We know customers have deadlines and we get hot orders all the time,” he explains. “The faster we can get that product out to them and get it to them on time, the better the customer service. That’s what we’re all about.”
International Paper is located at 5099 N. Royal Atlanta Drive. Being a manufacturing facility, it is not open to the public, but you can learn more about the company and its mission at internationalpaper.com.
