Employee Benefit Plans - Additional Information (Details) - USD ($)	3 Months Ended
Mar. 31, 2019	Apr. 01, 2018
Defined Benefit Plan Disclosure [Line Items]
Contributions	$ 2,780,000	$ 4,573,000
Expected contributions for remainder of fiscal year	13,500,000
Settlement losses recognized	1,322,000
Pension Plan
Defined Benefit Plan Disclosure [Line Items]
Settlement losses recognized	1,322,000	0
Pension Plan \| Sonoco Retirement Contribution
Defined Benefit Plan Disclosure [Line Items]
Contributions	14,573,000	14,151,000
Expected contributions for remainder of fiscal year	0
Recognized expense related to the plan	$ 6,267,000	$ 4,032,000
Pension Plan \| United States \| Sonoco Retirement Contribution
Defined Benefit Plan Disclosure [Line Items]
Employer matching contribution, percent of employees' gross pay	4.00%
Employer matching contribution, percent of employees' gross pay in excess of social security	4.00%

No definition available.

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- Definition

Amount of contribution received by defined benefit plan from employer which increases plan assets.

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- Definition

Line items represent financial concepts included in a table. These concepts are used to disclose reportable information associated with domain members defined in one or many axes to the table.

+ References

No definition available.

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Amount of contributions expected to be received by defined benefit plan from employer in fiscal year. Excludes contributions paid by employer in current fiscal year.

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- Definition

Amount of gain (loss) recognized in net periodic benefit (cost) credit from irrevocable action relieving primary responsibility for benefit obligation and eliminating risk related to obligation and assets used to effect settlement.

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- Definition

Amount of cost for defined contribution plan.

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- Definition

Percentage of employees' gross pay for which the employer contributes a matching contribution to a defined contribution plan.

+ References

No definition available.

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