What PLZ Aeroscience makes

PLZ Aeroscience, which now trades as PLZ Corp, is the North American leader in specialty aerosol and liquid product manufacturing. The company formulates, blends, fills, and packages thousands of branded and private-label products for other companies. It is a contract filler and formulator, not a shelf brand: most of what PLZ produces ships in a customer's packaging under a customer's name. Its work spans five broad markets, automotive, household cleaning, personal care, food service, and industrial.

The automotive line is where the company started and remains a named division. PLZ produces appearance and detailing products, interior and exterior cleaners, and functional fluids for the automotive aftermarket, the kind of aerosol and liquid car-care products found on service-bay shelves and retail racks. Beyond automotive, the portfolio runs from glass cleaners, disinfectants, and multi-surface household cleaners to hair care, skin care, and over-the-counter personal care, cooking and baking sprays and seasoning sprays for food service, and industrial lubricants, degreasers, paints, adhesives, air-care products, and pesticides. The company says it produces more than 2,500 distinct products across these segments.

The core capability is filling under pressure at scale. PLZ handles aerosol and non-aerosol filling, liquid blending, bag-on-valve systems, and a range of container types and sizes, backed by in-house chemistry, regulatory support, and quality assurance. For a buyer, the value is a single partner that can take a formula from R&D through blending, filling, private-label printing, and distribution, an outsourced production model that lets brand owners avoid building their own aerosol lines.

Scale and operations

PLZ operates a large North American network: 12 manufacturing and warehousing locations, more than 100 aerosol, liquid, and specialty filling lines, and millions of square feet of production and storage space. The company cites annual capacity of up to 1 billion aerosol units and the ability to perform one to seven line changeovers per shift, which matters for buyers running many small private-label runs rather than a few long ones. Operations are managed on SAP enterprise software with statistical process control, and the network includes on-site R&D centers and lab testing.

Headcount runs in the 2,000 to 2,500 range across the United States and Canada, with the large majority of sales in the U.S. PLZ does not publish audited financial statements; third-party data providers model annual revenue in the low-to-mid $400 million range, an estimate rather than a reported figure. The company reached its first billion cans produced in 2010, sixty years after filling its first can by hand, and has grown the platform through more than a dozen acquisitions since.

Ownership and history

PLZ traces to 1939, when John Ferring III founded Plaze Incorporated around Plastic Auto Glaze Polish, a car polish in a shaker can. In 1947 the U.S. government granted Plaze one of the first licenses to manufacture aerosol products, and in 1948 Ferring used the new aerosol technology to create an aerosol car polish, filled one can at a time. The company shifted toward contract filling in the early 1950s and moved production to St. Clair, Missouri in 1993.

The modern company was built by roll-up. In 2005 Plaze acquired Claire Manufacturing and Sprayway and formed PLZ Holding Corporation; in 2010 it added CPC Aeroscience and renamed itself PLZ Aeroscience. Between 2010 and 2018 it acquired Camie-Campbell, K-G Spray-Pak, Par-way Tryson, Penray, Precise Packaging, 220 Laboratories, Champion Brands, Mansfield-King, and others, building capability across personal care, food service, and OTC drug markets. The company is privately held by Pritzker Private Capital and management, and closed a large debt financing in 2026. At the close of 2025, PLZ sold its Sprayway consumer cleaning brand to concentrate on contract manufacturing.

Leadership, per the company's own team page: Fenton Challgren became Chief Executive Officer in 2025 after serving as Chief Operating Officer, having earlier led business units at Fortune Brands Innovations and IDEX. Greg Bourdon is President, General Products, and joined PLZ from Pritzker Private Capital. Ben Gambrel is President, Personal Care Solutions, and Bruce Manning is Chief Financial Officer.

Certifications and quality

PLZ states that it operates an ISO 9001:2015 quality management system across its manufacturing network, supported by on-site quality assurance, lab testing, and regulatory functions. The company describes an award-winning quality assurance program and runs statistical process control software plant-wide. Because much of PLZ's output is regulated, personal care, OTC, food-contact sprays, disinfectants, and pesticides, formulation and compliance support are a core part of the offering rather than an add-on. Certificate dates are not published on the company's site, so these are reported here as the company's own current claims.

Known customers

PLZ is a contract filler and private-label manufacturer, so the large majority of its customers are confidential retail brands and middle-market companies. One relationship is visible in the public record.

Beyond that, the company's customer base is described in general terms as national and international retail brands, middle-market companies, and institutional clients across its five markets.

Sourcing evidence

PLZ's US import record reads exactly the way an aerosol filler's should: 532 sea shipments since February 2017 on the bills of lading, dominated by empty aerosol containers and closures rather than finished goods. The company buys cans and caps, then blends and fills domestically. That inbound profile, packaging in and filled product out, is the signature of a manufacturer, not a reseller. The largest suppliers:

Top 3 shown of 29-plus foreign suppliers on record. By origin, the mix leads with Mexico (195 shipments), China (171), Taiwan (63), and Thailand (59). By product, it is aluminium articles (aerosol cans), iron and steel articles (steel cans and closures), and plastics (caps, stoppers, and lids), matching declared HTS codes such as 7612.90 for aluminium cans, 7310.21 for cans closed by crimping, and 3923.50 for plastic closures. Customs-derived estimates put cumulative ocean shipping spend near $1.4M, with cost data covering 59 percent of shipments, an order-of-magnitude figure rather than an audited one.

One reading worth flagging for buyers: because PLZ imports empty packaging, its ocean volume tracks packaging-sourcing and mix decisions, not overall plant output. Last-month shipments were down roughly 56 percent year over year in the ImportYeti data, while the import lane stayed active through September 2026. A decline in inbound cans can reflect nearshoring to domestic packaging suppliers or a change in product mix as easily as a change in demand, so it should not be read as a proxy for the company's total production.

Coverage caveats: these are US ocean-freight records only. Air, truck, and rail movements, and most intra-North-American flows, do not appear; some records name freight intermediaries rather than manufacturers; and product categories come from declared manifest codes, which are noisy. Absence of a record is not evidence of absence.

Frequently asked questions

What does PLZ Aeroscience make?

PLZ Aeroscience, now PLZ Corp, is a specialty aerosol and liquid contract manufacturer. It formulates, blends, fills, and packages more than 2,500 branded and private-label products across automotive, household cleaning, personal care, food service, and industrial markets. It is a contract filler, so most of its output ships under its customers' brand names.

Who owns PLZ Aeroscience?

PLZ is privately held by Pritzker Private Capital and company management. It began as a Ferring-family business, Plaze Incorporated, founded in 1939, and was consolidated into PLZ Holding Corporation in 2005 and renamed PLZ Aeroscience in 2010. The company closed a large debt financing in 2026.

Where is PLZ Aeroscience headquartered?

PLZ Corp is headquartered at 2651 Warrenville Road, Suite 300, Downers Grove, Illinois 60515. It operates 12 manufacturing and warehousing locations across the United States and Canada, including plants in St. Clair and Pacific, Missouri, Fall River, Massachusetts, and River Falls, Wisconsin.

How big is PLZ Aeroscience?

PLZ employs roughly 2,000 to 2,500 people across the U.S. and Canada, runs more than 100 filling lines across 12 plants, and cites annual capacity of up to 1 billion aerosol units. The company does not publish audited revenue; third-party providers model it in the low-to-mid $400 million range as an estimate.

What does PLZ Aeroscience make for the automotive market?

PLZ's automotive division produces aerosol and liquid car-care products for the aftermarket: interior and exterior cleaning and detailing products and functional fluids. Aerosol car polish is where the company started, with the first aerosol Plastel car polish in 1948.

What certifications does PLZ Aeroscience hold?

PLZ states it operates an ISO 9001:2015 quality management system across its manufacturing network, backed by on-site quality assurance, lab testing, and regulatory support. Because much of its output is regulated, formulation and compliance are central to the offering.

Last verified September 28, 2026. Is this your company? Request a correction.