WATERLOO - With seven jobs added in the past two weeks, 2010 is looking bright for Covington Box.

The corrugated packaging company is forecasting a 25 to 30 percent increase in sales over 2009, according to its president, Tony Fifer.

Now at 50 employees and growing, the company adds a second shift this week and expects to hire even more workers in the months ahead.

As part of the success story, a second company that operates inside the Waterloo plant will take a higher profile.

Waterloo International Funeral Supply should see a strong future thanks to a steady rise in cremation and other trends in the funeral industry.

Waterloo International holds a patent on direct-cremation corrugated caskets, a budget-minded option for people who do not wish to have public viewing of the casket. The plant sells them to the second-largest casket provider in the world.

The Waterloo company also produces cloth-covered corrugated caskets that are suitable for viewing and either burial or cremation.

"If you glance at them, you wouldn't know they're corrugated," Fifer said. Priced between $500 and $700, they cost "dramatically less" than wood or metal caskets, Fifer said.

As one of 35 makers of cloth-covered caskets, Waterloo International faces plenty of competition.

However, Fifer said, "These are, we've been told by many people, the premier corrugated, cloth-covered caskets. They're top of the line."

The Waterloo factory carries another exclusive product in its funeral supply lineup - metal caskets with licensed logos of Major League Baseball teams.

Waterloo International creates the team-theme caskets by purchasing plain-white, metal caskets and applying logos, team-color handles and fabrics embroidered with team names. It sells three to five per month, with plenty of potential to grow.

"This industry is changing as it's never changed before, because the Baby Boomers are saying, 'I want to go out with style and something that meant something to me,'" Fifer said.

Caskets with university logos will come next, and the company is considering an expansion of the baseball caskets to its corrugated line. Camouflage caskets for hunters are a possibility.

"We're going to start marketing big-time" in the theme caskets, Fifer said.

Growth of Covington Box's corrugated packaging sales is coming as the result of a new contract with Smurfit-Stone Container Corp., one of the biggest names in the industry.

Covington Box prints, die-cuts, folds and glues containers that leave its plant bearing the Smurfit-Stone name. Several machines from Smurfit-Stone's former Elkhart plant are being transferred to Waterloo.

Covington Box has built its business over three decades, starting in Ashley and moving to the west edge of Waterloo in 1991. Dean and Gail Kelly own the company and its 200,000-square-foot plant.

The Waterloo operation includes an 80,000 square-foot warehouse, the corrugated industry's largest in the tri-state area, Fifer said.

"We ship 99 percent on-time, and we've met that for over 10 years" for 200 customers, he said.

A third operation housed in the Covington plant, Waterloo Design, provides catalog and marketing services and builds and hosts Web sites.

Fifer credits Covington's success to the hard work and dedication of its staff.

"We have many employees here that have been with us for 15 plus years, and some over 20," he said.

The company's capabilities have set the stage for what could a prosperous year ahead.

"It's a great problem to have," said Mike Rogers, general manager. "We've got more hours of work to do than there are in a day, right now."