Nut-free Aurora food plant hiring workers, expanding to U.S., western Canada

YorkRegion.com
Aug. 9, 2016
By Lisa Queen This was no half-baked funding announcement.

A $100,000 government grant for food processing machinery will allow an Aurora company to expand its markets in the United States and western Canada and hire new workers, the president says.

“It’s fabulous, fabulous, fabulous. It’s fantastic. It’s awesome to be able to get the support of the government and to be able to be recognized in the market and the community because of it,” Treasure Mills president Robert Johnson said following the funding announcement at his Englehard Drive plant.

“We’re going to hire because we’ve become more competitive, which allows us to drive more products and growth. As we grow, we’re actually putting in another line.”

The funding to Treasure Mills, which makes nut- and peanut-free snack foods such as muffins, cookies and cupcakes in its 30,000-square-foot plant, is part of a $2.5 million investment by the provincial and federal governments to boost York Region’s food and beverage processing sector.

Treasure Mills, grew by more than 60 per cent and “hired dramatically” last year, Johnson said.

The grant for the flow wrapper machinery has reduced the company’s production costs by 10 per cent and increased product output by 200 per cent.

“The investment has really helped Treasure Mills to add innovation and efficiency to our facility since we moved into Aurora,” Johnson said.

“We really need this in order to compete into the U.S. market and (to move into) other products that now we’re launching into as we’re stepping outside the of bakery into (other) products, which forces us to compete with much bigger companies.”

While Johnson said the funding is allowing him to expand his workforce, he didn’t couldn’t say how many new workers the grant will allow him to hire.

Making strategic investments in food and beverage processing companies boosts the region’s agri-food sector, Oak Ridges-Markham MPP Helena Jaczek said.

The agri-food sector provides one in nine jobs in Ontario and generates more than $36 billion a year, she said.

Investments in the sector translates into good jobs and growth in the economy, Aurora-Oak Ridges-Richmond Hill MP Leona Alleslev added.