Greg Tucker is the Chairman and CEO of Bay Cities Packaging and Design, a leading provider of innovative retail packaging, in-store displays, and fulfillment solutions headquartered in Los Angeles with nationwide reach. Under his five decades of leadership, Bay Cities has grown into a 100% employee-owned company delivering vertically integrated, end-to-end services from design and structural engineering to manufacturing and distribution, with a deep commitment to sustainability through FSC- and SFI-certified, fully recyclable materials. A Hall of Fame inductee of the Association of Independent Corrugated Converters, the organization’s highest honor, Greg remains one of the most respected and influential voices in the corrugated packaging industry.
Company: Bay Cities
We are thrilled to have you join us today, welcome to ValiantCEO Magazine’s exclusive interview! Let’s start off with a little introduction. Tell our readers a bit about yourself and your company.
Greg Tucker: I’m Greg Tucker, CEO and Chairman of Bay Cities. We started in 1956 as a packaging company, and we’ve grown into a vertically integrated retail packaging partner working with more than 700 customers across 19 industries, from food and beverage to beauty, electronics, apparel, wine and pet care. Our work shows up in major retailers across North America, supporting product launches, retail activations and omnichannel programs for some of the biggest brands out there. Because we handle structural and graphic design, retail displays, packaging, fulfillment, logistics and retailer execution all under one roof, we can help brands work through the complexity that comes with this industry, from new sustainability requirements to a retail landscape and a shopper that keeps changing. We also build with FSC- and SFI-certified materials that are fully recyclable and made from up to 99% post-consumer waste.
I studied business administration at the University of Southern California, and I joined Bay Cities in 1981 right out of school. I never expected to still be here 45 years later, but once you understand how much strategy and creativity actually go into what people write off as boxes, this industry has a way of keeping hold of you. Along the way I’ve tried to give back to it too. I was inducted into the Association of Independent Corrugated Converters’ Hall of Fame after years serving as Region One Director and Chairman, I sit on the board of the Fiber Box Association, and I was recently selected as the next Vice Chairman of the International Corrugated Packaging Foundation. I also advise the Packaging and Graphic Communication boards at Cal Poly San Luis Obispo, which keeps me close to the people who’ll be running this industry next. Whether I’m mentoring someone just starting out or helping a brand win at retail, it feels like the same job to me.
What was the pivotal pricing insight or experiment that most dramatically improved your company’s growth or profitability?
Greg Tucker: The turning point for us was moving away from pricing every job the same way and building cost models around what a project actually demands from our plant. Freight, run length, die complexity and turnaround all used to get folded into one general rate. Once we started pricing based on real production cost per job, our margins on custom and short-run work improved substantially, and the simple jobs stopped quietly subsidizing the complex ones.
How do you determine the true value your product or service delivers to customers, and how does that shape your pricing strategy?
Greg Tucker: We look at what a package actually has to do for a customer. It needs to protect the product through their supply chain, hold up on a retail shelf and meet whatever compliance standard applies in their state. That performance is the real value we sell, and our pricing conversations start there. We walk customers through what happens when packaging fails, the returns, the damaged goods, the shelf space lost when a display doesn’t hold together. Speed is part of that value too. We run production timelines as short as seven to fourteen days on some programs, so a client is paying for certainty as much as for the box itself.
Sustainability compliance is another piece of it now. California’s SB 54 is pushing brands toward fully recyclable packaging by 2032, and because we built our sustainability program around FSC- and SFI-certified materials years before that deadline existed, our clients are already ahead of it instead of scrambling to catch up. Once a customer sees everything that’s actually wrapped into that price, the conversation changes.
Can you share one pricing decision (such as packaging, tiering, or a bold price increase) that felt risky at the time but ultimately paid off significantly?
Greg Tucker: We employed agentic AI to reconfigure our Cost Model and Estimating System and found that if we took on a particular piece of business at what was perceived a low-level contributor we instead gained more than 17% more in contribution than our previous ERP system indicated. Now we have identified this type of business and are setting our Sale team’s sites on it and we expect to see a bottom-line lift in any given month by well in excess of $250,000.
How do you continuously test and refine pricing without alienating existing customers or damaging brand perception?
Greg Tucker: We’re transparent about why pricing moves. When board costs shift, or when regulations like California’s SB 54 add new compliance costs, we walk clients through exactly what’s driving the change instead of just sending a new number. SB 54 just moved into permanent rules this year, with recyclability targets running through 2032, and we’ve been walking clients through what that means for their packaging well before it becomes urgent. We also test changes with a small group of accounts before rolling them out broadly, so we can see how they land before they become company-wide policy. Customers respect being told the truth about cost pressure far more than they respect a surprise invoice.
For other CEOs who still treat pricing as an afterthought, what’s the single most important mindset shift or first step you would recommend they take?
Greg Tucker: Stop treating pricing as an afterthought that finance handles once a year. Pricing is a daily decision that touches your production capacity, your customer relationships and your margins, and it deserves the same attention you’d give a new product launch. The first step is simple. Look at your real cost data job by job, not company averages, and build your pricing from there.
