H.B. Fuller

H.B. Fuller Company is an American adhesives manufacturing company supplying industrial adhesives worldwide. The company has long received praise in ethical investment circles for such things as careful handling of toxic waste and the nature reserve built around its headquarters. Despite this image, it faced a controversy over glue-sniffing in Latin America in the 1990s.

As of 2018, the company ranks 873 on the Fortune 1000.

History
H.B. Fuller was founded in 1887 by Harvey Benjamin Fuller in St. Paul, Minnesota, as a one-person company making glue for wallpaper. By the 1890s, Fuller's inventions included wall cleaners and the company had business throughout the United States. It incorporated in 1915, and in 1921, Harvey Jr. took over as president.

In 1941, Elmer L. Andersen, purchased the company from the Fuller family. Sales at the time of Andersen's purchase totaled US$200,000 annually; by 1959, sales had increased to US$10 million annually. H.B. Fuller expanded its position in the consumer goods market in 1956 with the construction of a plant in Minneapolis to make packing tape. By 1962, H.B. Fuller was one of the three largest adhesives manufacturers in the United States and had 20 manufacturing facilities in the U.S., South America, and Canada. H.B. Fuller acquired the Costa Rican company Kativo Chemical Industries in 1967, expanding its portfolio to include paints and inks. The company went public and made its initial public offering in 1968.

In 2022 the company won an Adhesives and Sealants Council Innovation Award for "Low Monomer/Emission Reactive Hot Melt Adhesives."

Glue sniffing controversy
In the 1990s, the company faced controversy over the glue-sniffing epidemic among street children in Latin America. A Fuller company brand, Resistol glue, was abused among these children to a sufficient extent that glue-sniffing children were called "resistoleros" regardless of the brand of glue being abused. A lawsuit filed against the company over the death of a Guatemalan teenager from sniffing glue was dismissed in 1996 due to lack of jurisdiction. The controversy eventually led to the company's withdrawal from the Latin American market.