Adds Grisebach: “And to top it off, while we were seeking the CFIA designation we had to halt the wild-game custom processing business.
“So not only were we losing customers, we were being forced to drop others—those seeking the processing of wild game—at the very same time.”
But with the vaunted CFIA certification finally obtained in March of 2007—formally classifying all the meat and poultry products leaving the plant as safe and wholesome—the upstart company has immediately set off to rasie its marketplace profile with a diverse range of high-quality delicatessen and other types of prepared meats.
The company’s two main flagship brand labels—Noah Martin’s Country Store and Waterloo County —comprise about 40 different products covering a broad spectrum of Euro-style delicacies, including a variety of salamis, turkey products, bone-in and Black Forest hams, side- and back-bacon, many different types of smoked sausages, and kielbasa and Polish-sausage rings, coils and loaves.
“Our real stand-out specialty is the Noah Martin’s Summer Sausage—in deli, chub and mini chub varieties—and the pepperoni snack-sticks,” Grisebach adds, citing the likes of Sobeys, Loblaw and A&P supermarket chains already carrying Heidelberg brands at their Ontario outlets.
ORIGINAL TOUCH
Grisebach says the company is well-positioned for succeeding in the Canadian marketplace thanks to the growth of multiethnic communities across the country, and the company’s knack for product innovation—as evidenced by its ability to produce authentic Chinese-, Russian- or Armenian-style sausage that faithfully recreates the taste and flavor profiles of the original recipes.
With the CFIA certification now allowing the company to market its products outside of Ontario, and with its private-label co-packing business also starting to show promising growth, Heidelberg recently beefed up its production equipment arsenal with the purchase of a brand new Repak RE 15 form/fill/seal packaging machine from the Burlington, Ont.-based food-processing and packaging systems supplier Reiser Canada.
“The Repak is a very simple and reliable machine to operate,” says Weiler, relating that in addition to providing a more efficient continuous vacuum packaging capability than the earlier vacuum-packing machine it had replaced, the RE-15 system’s gas-flashing option provides the plant with a whole new range of MAP (modified atmosphere packaging) possibilities.
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