Solo 9 in Red Square Plastic Plates - 20-Count Packs, 12/Case

Solo Cup Company traces back to 1936, when Leo Hulseman founded Paper Container Manufacturing in Chicago's South Shore neighborhood, making paper cone cups for bottled-water service. In 1940 the company installed an automatic cup-forming machine, and the resulting product line was renamed "Solo" to reflect its single-use purpose, gaining traction with restaurants during WWII-era glass and labor shortages. Under second-generation leader Robert Leo Hulseman, Solo introduced its now-iconic red polystyrene party cup in the 1970s and the patented Solo Traveler dome lid in 1986, which helped land Starbucks as a major customer the following year. The company grew through acquisitions, including Sweetheart Cup Company in 2004, before Dart Container purchased Solo Cup Company for roughly $1 billion in May 2012, ending the Hulseman family's control of the business. Solo now operates as a Dart Container brand, and its catalog - red party cups, plastic and paper cold cups, straw-slot lids, and the Squared and AnyDay party tableware lines AFS Marketplace carries - continues to be manufactured and sold alongside Dart's own foodservice packaging portfolio.