FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
CONTACT:
Roy Robinson
Portola Packaging, Inc.
Phone: 630-406-8440, ext. 3012
Fax: 630-406-8442

San Jose, CA – September 19, 2003 – Portola Packaging, Inc. announced today it has completed the acquisition of Tech Industries, Inc. located in Woonsocket, Rhode Island. Tech Industries is a leading manufacturer of plastic closures and containers for the personal care and cosmetic industries and had sales of approximately $31mm in fiscal year 2002.

“We’re extremely excited about the addition of Tech Industries to the Portola family,” said Jim Taylor, President and COO for Portola. “Tech is the market leader in highly decorative value-added packaging for the cosmetic and personal care industries. Their market leadership will contribute significantly to our future growth plans as we look to strategically diversify into additional markets outside our traditional food and beverage segments.”

Over the past year, Portola’s strategic research identified a number of market segment opportunities for growth that included the food, personal care, and cosmetic industries. “We’re in the Product Integrity business and feel we can bring our outstanding customer service and quality, manufacturing competency, global manufacturing presence and product innovation to this new market segment. Tech Industries is already a leader in one of these important growth markets and therefore is an excellent partner to help us achieve these diversified growth objectives,” added Taylor.

For the past fifty years, Tech Industries has been a leading supplier to global cosmetic and personal care companies producing high impact plastic closures and containers by using in-house patented molding systems. Tech’s creative design and manufacturing teams have allowed many of their customers to create one-of-a-kind packaging for maximum shelf impact, vital to the skin care, fragrance and cosmetics industries.

“We’re looking forward to our new relationship with Portola and the synergistic opportunities we can bring to each other,” said Bill Nast, Co-President of Tech Industries. “This partnership will allow Tech to serve geographic markets that were previously out of our reach, and create a company that will continue to deliver a higher level of customer satisfaction and customer service.”

Headquartered in San Jose, CA, Portola designs, manufactures and markets a broad range of products and services including tamper evident plastic closures, bottles, and related equipment and engineering services for the dairy, milk, fruit juice, bottled water, sports drinks, and other non-carbonated beverage markets. The Company produces a wide variety of plastic bottles for use in the dairy, water and juice industries, including HDPE and five-gallon polycarbonate water bottles. The Company is also engaged in the manufacture and sale of tooling and molds used in the blow molding industry. Portola has operations in the United States, United Kingdom, Canada, Mexico, and China, with joint ventures and licensees in Europe, Middle East, South America, Egypt and South Africa.

Headquartered in Woonsocket, RI, Tech Industries, Inc. is a leading supplier of plastic packaging components to the cosmetic, fragrance and toiletries industry (CFT). Having been in business for nearly fifty years, the Company’s long-term global customers include Estee Lauder, Avon, Loreal, Revlon and Procter and Gamble. Tech’s all-under-one-roof capabilities include injection and compression molding, thermal and ultra violet metallizing, ultra violet one coat spray technologies, silk screening, hot stamping, lining and multiple component assembly. In addition to offering the largest stock line of closures in the industry, with over 450 styles and sizes, Tech has a complementary line of heavy wall PETG jars.