Crown Holdings, Inc. is an American multinational packaging company headquartered in Tampa, Florida, that designs and manufactures rigid-metal packaging including aluminum beverage cans, metal food cans, aerosol cans, and specialty packaging. Founded in 1892, as the Crown Cork & Seal Company, the company is ranked No. 359 in the Fortune 500 list for 2025.[2] As of 2024, Crown employs over 23,000 people at 189 plants in 39 countries.[3]
History
William Painter, a Quaker from Maryland, invented the crown cap for bottled carbonated beverages in 1891 and obtained patents on February 2, 1892. He founded his own manufacturing company, the Crown Cork and Seal Company, in Baltimore and sold bottlers that his cap was the right one in a croded field of contraptions. By 1898, he had created a foot-powered crowner device to sell to bottlers and retailers so that they could seal the bottles with his caps quickly and easily. This helped gain acceptance of his bottle caps. By 1906, Crown had opened manufacturing plants in Brazil, France, Germany, Japan, and the United Kingdom.
By the 1930s, Crown was selling half of the world's supply of bottle caps. Crown entered the tin can business in 1936 with the purchase of the Acme Can Company of Philadelphia, which led to the creation of the