Coming off its most profitable year yet, Normiska Corp. here is still racing to meet consumer demand.
“We can’t make the product fast enough. We want to make it more profitable and the final challenge is transportation,” noted company president and CEO David Graham.
Normiska recently has completed expansions in its Fort Frances plant to increase transportation efficiency and the company’s profit margin.
“We’re coming into the big season and our new compressed bailing system is now up an running,” said Graham. “It extends the geographic area we can send the product to.”
The peat and soil products from Normiska are used in landscaping, golf course construction, nurseries, and greenhouses across Canada and now even further into the U.S.
“You’re getting more product on the truck,” said Graham. “The sales are there and we just have to meet them.”
A sure sign the demand is there, Normiska’s sales jumped by 468 percent last year over 1999 with a net income of $140,649 with the next annual report due by March 8, 2001.
Besides the Fort Frances site, Normiska also operates out of Lachine, Que.
In other news, Normiska is treading new ground after signing a letter of intent with Abitibi-Consolidated Inc. outlining an arrangement respecting mineral rights found on roughly 480,000 acres of private lands owned by Abitibi near Thunder Bay.
The deal allows Normiska to explore the lands for precious metals including platinum and palladium.
“It’s a very, very exciting, sizzling thing,” said Graham, who added a subsidiary, Nearco Minerals Inc., has been formed to manage the new enterprise.
“It’s not our core business so in order to deal with that issue and keep our management focused on the horticultural business, we did that,” he said.
“We couldn’t pass on the opportunity for the shareholders,” Graham remarked.
Fort Frances Times
Local News from Across the Rainy River District
