Crosby’s, the well-known molasses company in Saint John, received federal and provincial funds on St. Patrick’s Day to help automate its production line.
The federal government committed $550,000, while the province added in an additional $250,000, to help the company install a robotic case packer, cartoner and palletizer. The new tools are expected to increase production by 15 percent. The money will also go towards hiring a supply chain manager.
“Being Saint Patrick’s Day, I did want to talk a little bit about luck,” says Crosby’s president James Crosby, the fifth generation in the family-run business. “Luck is really where preparation meets opportunity.”
Crosby describes the decision eight years ago that saw the company become a co-manufacturing partner for a large food company, and how that investment put the company on the path where it is today – with an expanded facility and almost doubling Crosby’s workforce.
“I’m feeling pretty lucky today. The opportunity that we started on eight years ago [has led to] some other opportunities presented to us. And we were prepared.”
Crosby says this automation is the next step in making operations even more efficient at the facility.
“This whole project automation project was born from our engineering manager and our plant manager trying to solve some challenges that we were having in production.”
Specifically, the hot chocolate manufacturing operation will be the prime beneficiary of these improvements. Crosby says the production line needed to work 24/7 to meet demand, but with these new tools, life should be easier for employees.
“There’s going to be training. We’re going to have to develop some new skills,” he says of adding automation. “It’s going to require a different skill set for our operators.”
These pieces of equipment will begin arriving throughout the year, starting next month.
“We have a very stable business and we recognize that molasses is not going to be the source of our future growth, so the capability we want to leverage is that manufacturing and operational capability,” Crosby says.
“Most of our business today is in Canada. Canada is a very consolidated grocery landscape. So we currently supply all the major grocery stores throughout the country, so how this is going to allow us to expand is in our product offering, so that we can sell different formats.”
Looking toward the future, Crosby says this investment in automation will help the company move into the sixth generation of business.
“We really see an opportunity in the marketplace to make further investments and to bring manufacturing into the Canadian market, because I think the pandemic showed us how fragile supply chains could be. There’s a lot of value to companies to have manufacturing in the markets that they serve and we’re in a really good position to grow.”
Alex Graham is a Reporter for Huddle Today, an Acadia Broadcasting content-sharing partner.
