Henk Vrugteveen, owner of Oxford Pallet and Recyclers Ltd., in Norwich, Ontario, shares his thoughts on winning government grants and plant expansion.
Pallet Enterprise: Your company just won a major government grant for expansion. What is the main driver behind this expansion effort?
Vrugteveen: We have totally maxed out our current facility. We were able to buy an adjacent piece of land two years ago and thought about just putting up another building. But we realized our forklift and sorting flow would work best if we started with a new building and a new layout. We have sold our existing land and building to the local municipality’s road department. This new expansion will allow us to grow and continue to improve our work flow as well as hire more people.
Pallet Enterprise: How did you get the idea for applying for government grants?
Vrugteveen: Last year I heard that our provincial government was coming out with a new grant program for the forest products sector. We looked into it and saw that it would be a good fit. The process involved a lot of paperwork, site visits, meetings, and developing a five-year plan. The government wanted us to show how we were going to create jobs and increase our lumber purchases. The provincial forestry program really wants us to export softwood pallets into the American market and to increase our need for hardwood lumber. We received a $2 million grant from the provincial government, and we received a $1 million grant from the federal government. It will probably be an $8 million project by the time we are all done here.
Pallet Enterprise: One of your goals is to more than double your capacity. Can you talk about how you plan to do that and what technology you hope to deploy?
Vrugteveen: We are going to move our operations into a 48,000 square foot production building and a 6,000 square foot grinding building, both designed to accommodate more growth and equipment. We are going to install a new pallet sort line with a vision system that identifies the size of each pallet entering the line. A robot will stack pallets at the end of this system. This is going to be the first-of-its-kind operating in Ontario. We have ordered a new Rotochopper hammer mill to go along with our two existing grinders. We are adding two loading auger systems for wood waste and walking floor trailers.
Pallet Enterprise: How has COVID-19 affected your business and what have you done to cope with those changes?
Vrugteveen: For the first few months of the pandemic, some of our larger distribution centers in the Greater Toronto Area (GTA) went into a shutdown. As a result, the core market was really tight. Both the core market as well as the rental pool have remained very tight in the GTA. We are converting some customers to a mixture of new and used pallets. We haven’t been able to keep wood chips on the ground. The mulch business was booming this spring.
Pallet Enterprise: How will the new automation affect your labor needs and employees?
Vrugteveen: The flow of our operation is going to change significantly. Our biggest challenging spot, in terms of labor, is our existing sorting process. My repair and pallet building employees tend to stick around. The sortation process is where we have a greater turnover rate. The new sortation line will enable us to boost production, pay more by switching to a piece-rate basis, and reduce worker strain. At this time, we are very thankful and blessed to have such a great work force. We currently employ over 60 full-time staff.
