Moore Packaging delivers the very essence of essentials during this pandemic.
Its corrugated packaging ensures food, drink and household products can be shipped to supermarkets, that pharmaceuticals and medical supplies make it to the drug stores.
And all of those online shoppers get goods dropped on their doorstep in a corrugated container.
“What we make is called the lowly cardboard box, because everybody takes it for granted,” said Peter Moore, chairman and CEO of Moore Packaging in Barrie. “We can make any size box you want. We can do a box to hold a refrigerator, we can do a box to hold, I don’t know, a hamburger.
“When you get your beer, your wine… when you go to the supermarket, they’ve got a whole area in the back where they bale up old boxes and ship them back to the (paper) mills,” he added. “We’re kind of the forgotten industry.”
Moore said he found out quickly when the COVID-19 pandemic began, about 11 months ago, that his business was going to be on the essential list. America declared packaging an essential industry and, through the Canadian Corrugated and Containerboard Association, Ottawa got a reminder and made the same decision.
Approximately 225 people work at Moore Packaging, about the same as when the pandemic started.
Moore praises his workers during these tough times.
“We’ve been very stringent with the COVID (rules). We haven’t had one case so far, and therefore no interruptions to our operations,” he said. “It’s a credit to our employees.
“We’ve been pretty busy, but it didn’t really ramp up until the fall. We are turning down new business daily from companies looking for another supplier as we are running at 100 per cent of capacity. If they (other businesses) didn’t have us they wouldn’t be able to ship any of their stuff,” Moore added.
Moore Packaging doesn’t sell corrugated containers directly to the supermarkets, for example, but to whoever’s making the food.
The John Street facility, near Highway 400 and Tiffin Street, makes its corrugated containers almost from scratch. It starts with rolls of paper, forms them, glues them, processes and prints them, slots them, glues them again, and ships them out the door, Moore said.
“The only thing we don’t own is a paper mill, which is making all the money these days,” he said. “They just raised the price again, because of the shortage of paper.”
Moore finds some amusement in the box sizes used in shipping during these days of online shopping.
“I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but you get a little thing five inches long in a box that’s a foot long,” he said. “If you used a proper-sized box, you’d save a lot of money. We kind of get a kick out of the big boxes they ship little items in, with those air bags inside. But I think they only work with a dozen sizes of boxes.”
Like any industry, Moore says corrugated containers have had their ups and downs during his time in the business.
“When I started in the industry back in the ’70s, automotive parts were the biggest users of corrugated,” he said. “In the ’80s, they were shipping all their parts in plastic trays, so we went into a bit of a slump.
“Then online shopping came along and that’s really made us busier than we had been.”
Moore Packaging began in 1979, with Peter Moore building boxes from his own garage and selling them to local businesses. He had several roles in the company, including sales, design and shipping.
It expanded from his garage to a full warehouse and office facility, producing customized, high-quality packaging.
Today, both of Moore’s sons are involved in the business.
The pandemic has changed one other aspect of Peter Moore’s life: he hasn’t seen a Canadian winter in 20 years, preferring Fort Lauderdale, Florida’s warmer climate this time of year. But he’s not travelling this winter.
“I’m not adjusting well,” he said with a laugh. “We must be going to set a record for snow. I don’t remember anything like this for a long time.”
AT A GLANCE: Moore Packaging
Three shifts, five days a week plus overtime on the weekends
Average daily production of three million square feet of corrugated board, enough to cover 70 acres
Board is converted into printed boxes and shipped daily to southern Ontario customers in 30 tractor-trailers
Demand has increased 25 per cent since last fall and is still growing
TORONTO – Strength in the base metal and technology sectors helped Canada’s main stock index gain almost 100 points on Friday, while U.S. stock markets also climbed higher.
The S&P/TSX composite index closed up 93.51 points at 23,568.65.
In New York, the Dow Jones industrial average was up 297.01 points at 41,393.78. The S&P 500 index was up 30.26 points at 5,626.02, while the Nasdaq composite was up 114.30 points at 17,683.98.
The Canadian dollar traded for 73.61 cents US compared with 73.58 cents US on Thursday.
The October crude oil contract was down 32 cents at US$68.65 per barrel and the October natural gas contract was down five cents at US$2.31 per mmBTU.
The December gold contract was up US$30.10 at US$2,610.70 an ounce and the December copper contract was up four cents US$4.24 a pound.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 13, 2024.
OTTAWA – Statistics Canada says wholesale sales, excluding petroleum, petroleum products, and other hydrocarbons and excluding oilseed and grain, rose 0.4 per cent to $82.7 billion in July.
The increase came as sales in the miscellaneous subsector gained three per cent to reach $10.5 billion in July, helped by strength in the agriculture supplies industry group, which rose 9.2 per cent.
The food, beverage and tobacco subsector added 1.7 per cent to total $15 billion in July.
The personal and household goods subsector fell 2.5 per cent to $12.1 billion.
In volume terms, overall wholesale sales rose 0.5 per cent in July.
Statistics Canada started including oilseed and grain as well as the petroleum and petroleum products subsector as part of wholesale trade last year, but is excluding the data from monthly analysis until there is enough historical data.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 13, 2024.
TORONTO – Canada’s main stock index was up more than 150 points in late-morning trading, helped by strength in the base metal and energy sectors, while U.S. stock markets were mixed.
The S&P/TSX composite index was up 172.18 points at 23,383.35.
In New York, the Dow Jones industrial average was down 34.99 points at 40,826.72. The S&P 500 index was up 10.56 points at 5,564.69, while the Nasdaq composite was up 74.84 points at 17,470.37.
The Canadian dollar traded for 73.55 cents US compared with 73.59 cents US on Wednesday.
The October crude oil contract was up $2.00 at US$69.31 per barrel and the October natural gas contract was up five cents at US$2.32 per mmBTU.
The December gold contract was up US$40.00 at US$2,582.40 an ounce and the December copper contract was up six cents at US$4.20 a pound.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 12, 2024.
