N@N

ARLINGTON HEIGHTS, Ill.--([ BUSINESS WIRE ])--ThermoSafe Brands, a business unit of Sonoco (NYSE: SON), announced a price increase of 4 -7 percent across most of its product portfolio, effective March 5, 2012. This price increase will affect all expanded polystyrene (EPS) and polyurethane (PUR), including custom and cataloged shipper solutions and components globally.

"Despite our efforts to offset cost increases through Lean initiatives, we reached a point where we must raise prices to offset the ongoing inflation in our costs."

The price increase is necessary to cover rising costs in raw materials, labor, energy and transportation. aAt ThermoSafe, we continually invest in our operations, technology, people and infrastructure to ensure we offer industry leading solutions, products and services at competitive prices,a stated Mary Kate Phillips, director of North American Sales. aDespite our efforts to offset cost increases through Lean initiatives, we reached a point where we must raise prices to offset the ongoing inflation in our costs.a

ThermoSafeas customers will be contacted individually regarding the specifics of the price increases.

aThermoSafe continues to offer highly innovative solutions using state-of-the-art technologies and equipment to take care of our customers in their mission-critical shipments of pharmaceuticals, clinical trials samples, blood, investigational drugs, food or chemicals that are temperature sensitive. We continually strive to provide our customers with the best value at the best possible prices,a said Prakash Mahesh, vice president of Marketing and Business Development.

ThermoSafe Brands is the largest manufacturer of temperature-assurance packaging and the leading provider of thermal testing solutions for life sciences customers.

For more information about ThermoSafe Brandsa complete line of products, please visit the Companyas website at [ www.thermosafe.com ] or contact our customer service at (800) 505-1886.

About Sonoco

Founded in 1899, Sonoco is a global provider of a variety of consumer packaging, industrial products, protective packaging and packaging supply chain services. With annualized net sales of approximately $5 billion, the Company has more than 19,000 employees working in 340 operations in 34 countries, serving some of the worldas best known brands in some 85 nations. Sonoco is a proud member of the 2011/2012 Dow Jones Sustainability World Index. For more information on the Company, visit our website at [ www.sonoco.com ].