Top 10 Articles of 2025, #10 | OEM Magazine

Top 10 Articles of 2025, #10: R.A Jones at 120: From Soap Advertising to Global Packaging Power

The #10 most-clicked article of 2025: Backed by Coesia’s global strength, the Kentucky-based OEM combines a century of innovation with modern automation to support the next generation of packaging.

R.A Jones headquarters in Covington, Kentucky.
R.A Jones headquarters in Covington, Kentucky.
R.A Jones

Advertising soap was a popular marketing method around the turn of the 20th century, often including a slip of paper inside a soap bar. By doing this, the advertisement remained visible for nearly the entire lifespan of the soap. The inventor? Ruel Anderson Jones, or R.A Jones.

R.A Jones didn’t stop there, as that innovative product led to the invention of the first automatic soap packaging machine in 1912 and, less than a decade later, its first mechanical cartoner in 1921. As R.A Jones evolved, so did the innovations. In the 1950s, the company sold its first multi-packer into the beverage industry. The early 1970s saw R.A Jones not only put high-speed horizontal form, fill, and seal pouching equipment on the map with its Pouch King machine but also ship the first Bag-in-Box cartoning machine to the cereal industry.

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