[Niagara This Week]

Most people are familiar with Tetra Pak wine beverages; now a St. Catharines based company will be providing a host of alcohol based beverages in similar packaging with a little help from the federal government.

St. Catharines MP Rick Dykstra recently announced that local company VinFirst Innovative Packaging will receive $714,000 in the form of an interest-free loan from the federal government through the Federal Development Agency of Southern Ontario.

VinFirst was established in 2006 and is the only packager in North America focusing solely on the alcoholic beverage market using Tetra Pak Antiseptic Cartons.

The cartons, which can be used for a variety of non-carbonated beverages, are environmentally friendly and are similar to a large juice box.

“We wanted to offer local wineries the ability to compete in that field,” said Kevin Ruddle, vice-president of operations, as he explained that foreign wineries had started to offer their products in the cartons.

Currently the factory packages wine from all over the world and has grown to perform three to four production runs a week compared to the two or three runs a month it performed during its first two years of operation. The federal funding is going to help finance a $1.4-million expansion to the facility, allowing the company to branch out into other alcoholic beverages such as mojitos and mai tais. Currently the new beverages will be for export only, Ruddle said.

“I have no doubt Canada will take it on after it blows up in the U.S.,” he said.

The factory employs nine full-time workers and can package 7,000 litres per hour. Tetra Pak cartons cost a fraction of the price of a bottle and have 80 per cent less of a carbon footprint.

VinFirst supplies 70 per cent of Tetra Pak beverages carried in the LCBO.

“The success of companies like these (small to medium size businesses) is crucial to our economic recovery and the growth of our community’s manufacturing base,” said Dykstra.

The expansion will allow the company to increase the number of its employees by 30 per cent.

VinFirst obtained the loan after applying with the help of the city’s Economic Development and Tourism Services department.

“The chamber of commerce and the city of St. Catharines have been great to work with,” Ruddle said.

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