Telepeer

California’s moving box titan sees flat sales as ‘canary in the coal mine’

March 13, 2026

Two years ago, Gary Blower and his three brothers took over the family-run Pioneer Packing and its sister business, Heritage Paper, in Santa Ana, from their 83-year-old ailing father.

Injured in a Colorado River boating accident in western Arizona in 2013, the elder Michael Blower founded the companies nearly half a century ago after he tired of the meddlesome new owners of his grandfather’s World War II-era paper company, Blower Paper.

The wholesale company for moving boxes sees a “semiflat” growth year ahead because of sluggish home sales in California.

“We’re like the canary in the coal mine for the economy,” Gary Blower says of their wholesale cardboard moving box and packaging businesses. It’s been rocked over the decades by the ups and downs of California’s real estate market. They’ve also seen growth fueled by natural disasters, like earthquakes, torrential rains and winds, and wildfires.

“People buy boxes when interest rates are low, and they want to move, or when times are good. They also are in the market for boxes when natural disasters force them to move,” Gary Blower says.

Pioneer took a financial hit in the 2007-2008 Great Recession when millions of people lost their homes through foreclosures, and again during the pandemic from 2020 through 2023 when sales slumped as people stayed home and tightened their budgets. During the past year, Gary Blower said sales have slowed as the real estate market has stumbled and rates have remained high, sending home sales to levels below those last seen before the Great Recession crash.

But it also has seen boom times — such as the Northridge earthquake in 1994, when people scrambled to find new housing and move from the rubble of their destroyed homes. It also saw strength during last year’s deadly and destructive Los Angeles-area wildfires that disrupted the lives of thousands of homeowners in the Pacific Palisades and Altadena communities. Pioneer supplied boxes to major moving van companies that picked up household goods from homeowners who needed to relocate.

Some of the moving and relocation companies that it supplies boxes, tape, furniture pads and other materials include United Van Lines and Mayflower, both owned by St. Louis-based UniGroup Inc., Illinois-based Allied Van Lines Inc., and California-based Chipman Relocation & Logisitics and Meathead Movers.

The Donald Trump administration’s tariffs — declared illegal by the U.S. Supreme Court on Feb. 20 — have not hurt Gary Blower’s business, which buys its cardboard boxes from U.S. suppliers. However, moving blankets, which it buys from China, saw price increases in freight costs to the twin-port complex in Long Beach and Los Angeles.

Pioneer also derives about 40% of its box business from a moving program for military service members.

The program has been criticized over the years for not being run smoothly as it has seen swings in its procurement process by the major moving van lines who buy from Pioneer. The military brass made changes recently that may smooth out the business and make it more profitable for moving van companies.

So how is business?

“It’s difficult,” said Gary Blower, who runs the business from a 169,000-square foot warehouse filled to the rafters with boxes, storage bins and other moving supplies on South Grand Avenue in Santa Ana.

The company is far from its heyday of a few decades ago, when the corrugated box and packing supply business expanded into multiple Western states and generated more than $100 million in revenue. Michael Blower began stepping away from the business a few decades ago, downsizing with the sale of branches in Livermore; Chicago; Denver; Kent, Washington, a southern suburb of Seattle; Naperville, Illinois; and Phoenix. Other plants in Mira Loma and Riverside also were sold.

The companies haven’t been without competition in its niche, including Smurfit Westrock PLC, an Irish company that makes corrugated and paper-based packaging; Virginia-based New Haven Moving Equipment; and New Jersey-based Packaging Exchange, launched in early 2023 by packaging industry veteran Robert Egan in partnership with Atlas Holdings, a $16 billion holding company with interests in the global paper and packaging industry.

A fourth rival, Rancho Dominguez-based California Dolly and Supply, also known as CDS Moving Equipment, filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection at the end of 2025.

We asked Gary Blower about his role in the company and the challenges he faces in the consolidating industry. His answers have been edited for clarity and length.

Q: How is the business, given the housing market swings?

A: It’s been very flat since last June. We’re tied to the housing market, so there haven’t been any box price increases — just because there’s no demand. I was hoping for a banner year in 2025, but it was as bad as it could be, since basically the volume just wasn’t there for people relocating.

I’m hoping for a better year in 2026, but I don’t think it’s going to be great. I think people are sitting on their old mortgages, paying 2.8% to 3.2% interest rates on long-term loans. If rates come down from just over 6% currently, people might get off the sidelines to buy a home — which helps our business.

Unless they’re planning on getting out of the state, I think they’re kind of staying put. I think it’s going to be another semiflat year.

Q: What economic factors affect your business?

A: The real estate market is our barometer.

If the real estate market is soft, people really aren’t relocating and using our moving supplies.

I’d say a large percentage — close to 40% — of our business is with military movers, and there are big changes going on there. During the government shutdown (from Oct. 1, 2025, to Nov. 12), there were two months of no transactions. They were not transferring troops, so that really hurt our business. (The military program is called DP3, or the Defense Personal Property Program. DP3 provides moving and storage services to Pentagon and Coast Guard personnel and their families)

A lot of movers went out of business because the profit margins were not good.

During the (Joe) Biden administration [from January 2021 to January 2025], there was a big shake-up in the program. They tried to cut costs and go with a single-source distributor for military movers but it didn’t work. Once again, the margins were so tight that the movers couldn’t make money on relocations.

The military just announced another program, and the moving industry is hoping for better margins and fix shortcomings. I think there’s going to be a pretty good glut of relocations going on for the military now, which will help us tremendously.

Q: When were some of biggest up-and-down cycles for the company?

A: The worst was during the 2007-2008 Great Recession, which was triggered by the collapse of the U.S. housing bubble.

We kind of were hammered by the real estate market — but we bounced back. The pandemic also was tough — but the Paycheck Protection Program, also known as PPP money, helped bump up the books. But things have definitely been softer ever since.

(PPP money refers to forgivable loans provided by the U.S. Small Business Administration during the pandemic to help small businesses maintain their payrolls.)

The Northridge earthquake in 1994 was a boom for the business. We were sending truckloads of supplies to Northridge just so the people in that region could have packouts from damaged buildings and homes. Any time there’s a natural disaster — like heavy rains and flooding — it really helps the business. Restoration companies just kind of move into a neighborhood and pack up what they can with our boxes.

Q: What is the split in the $40 million in annual revenue that your two businesses generate — both Pioneer and Heritage?

A: Pioneer is the smaller of the two. There has been a lot of consolidation of moving companies and suppliers. There are so many different avenues for people to get their moving materials, like from Home Depot, U-Haul or Amazon.

Our business is probably down over the last 20 years, maybe 35%, because of this trend.

Q: Is there a industry consolidation taking place?

A: Yes. We’ve looked at selling and have received offers from our competitors, but we’ve always turned them down. We’re the only moving and storage supplier in California with just one location.

Q: What’s the plan with Heritage?

A: The world’s their oyster. They can do packaging for any company.

We’ve produced everything from alcohol displays for Costco, LG home product displays, point of purchase displays at Target to high-volume runs of custom shipping boxes for shoe cleaning products, boxes for Dave’s Hot Chicken “Fallout” Meals and Petco labels and boxes.

We’ve also done packaging for CareFusion (a San Diego-based medical technology company acquired by Becton, Dickinson Co. in 2015), Kingston Technology in Fountain Valley, and ShipBob ( a Chicago-based global supply chain and fulfillment platform for small and midsized businesses) — a mini-Amazon kind of shipper.

Blower moving box kingdom

Founder: Michael Blower, 83, in 1976 but stepped away from daily responsibilities for health reasons, and passed the company to his four sons two years ago

Succession: Gary Blower: 57, president of Pioneer; Jason Blower: 59,director of purchasing: Jeff Blower: 56, sales and warehouse manager for Pioneer and Heritage; and Cole Blower: 31, manager of Heritage

Headquarters: 2400 S. Grand Ave., Santa Ana

Revenue: $40 million in 2025

Employees: 40

Follow local housing with our free “Home Stretch” email newsletter. SIGN UP HERE!

Brothers Jason, Gary, Jeff and Cole Blower, from left, run Heritage Paper and Pioneer Packing in Santa Ana, CA. (Photo by Paul Bersebach, Orange County Register/SCNG)

1 of 3

Brothers Jason, Gary, Jeff and Cole Blower, from left, run Heritage Paper and Pioneer Packing in Santa Ana, CA. (Photo by Paul Bersebach, Orange County Register/SCNG)

Expand

California’s moving box titan sees flat sales as ‘canary in the coal mine’ Orange County Register

News Details

California’s moving box titan sees flat sales as ‘canary in the coal mine’

Blower moving box kingdom

News

CONTACT INFO

QUICK LINKS

SERVICES

CURRENT NEWS