Westfield manufacturer expands with bread bags
McNairn Packaging sees a big future in bread bags. But not just any bread bags but bags for those specialty, high end “artisan” loaves arranged enticingly at the supermarket.
McNairn Packaging sees a big future in bread bags. But not just any bread bags but bags for those specialty, high end “artisan” loaves arranged enticingly at the supermarket. The company has already installed one $1 million machine specially designed to manufacture bags for that bread market and it plans to install four more at its plant on Elise Street near Barnes Regional Airport, said Thomas H. DuFore, vice president of human resources for McNairn in Westfield.
The company manufactured the first bags on the new machine last week. The other machines will arrive from a McNairn factory in Canada in the next six to nine months, he said.
The $5 million investment will result in McNairn Packaging adding 10 to 20 new jobs for a new total of more than 120 employees. The machines had been set up at McNairn’s factory in Whitby, Ontario.
“Well, people are buying artisan breads,” he said. “That whole artisan movement is really taking off. We see this is a state-of-the-art bag-making facility.”
McNairn is a Canadian company that opened its Westfield plant, its first in the United States, in 1991. It makes paper products that wrap food. Examples include the little strips of coated paper a clerk uses to select doughnuts and place them in a box doughnut shop, butcher paper, freezer paper or little bags hot dogs and sandwiches come in, muffin cups and the like.
The company got its start in 1882 when Canadian James Harvey McNairn started the first company that used rollers to make waxed paper.
Last year, McNairn received a $92,800 Workforce Training Fund grant from the state of Massachusetts with the help of the Massachusetts Manufacturing Partnership. The money allowed the McNairn to train its entire work force in “Lean Manufacturing” a system cutting costs and improving quality that grew from the Toyota Production System.
“We re-thought everything we do on the shop floor,” DuFore said. “But that transformation gave us the confidence to expand here. We know we can get the work force we need here in Westfield.”
Westfield is also close to large population centers of upscale supermarket shoppers who will buy the bread in the bags, DuFore said. So manufacturing them here saves shipping expense.
The $5 million investment will result in McNairn Packaging adding 10 to 20 new jobs for a new total of more than 120 employees. The machines had been set up at McNairn’s factory in Whitby, Ontario.
“Well, people are buying artisan breads,” he said. “That whole artisan movement is really taking off. We see this is a state-of-the-art bag-making facility.”
McNairn is a Canadian company that opened its Westfield plant, its first in the United States, in 1991. It makes paper products that wrap food. Examples include the little strips of coated paper a clerk uses to select doughnuts and place them in a box doughnut shop, butcher paper, freezer paper or little bags hot dogs and sandwiches come in, muffin cups and the like.
The company got its start in 1882 when Canadian James Harvey McNairn started the first company that used rollers to make waxed paper.
Last year, McNairn received a $92,800 Workforce Training Fund grant from the state of Massachusetts with the help of the Massachusetts Manufacturing Partnership. The money allowed the McNairn to train its entire work force in “Lean Manufacturing” a system cutting costs and improving quality that grew from the Toyota Production System.
“We re-thought everything we do on the shop floor,” DuFore said. “But that transformation gave us the confidence to expand here. We know we can get the work force we need here in Westfield.”
Westfield is also close to large population centers of upscale supermarket shoppers who will buy the bread in the bags, DuFore said. So manufacturing them here saves shipping expense.
Source: McNairn Packaging
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