Covered Bridge restarts production at hired facilities, with plans to expand

Article content

Covered Bridge Potato Chips has produced its first product since the fire, using facilities that have stepped up to run some production, and plans to expand that with more production out of a Woodstock warehouse.

Company president Ryan Albright says it’s been a “whirlwind” to restart since a massive fire destroyed the Covered Bridge facility in Hartland on March 1.

But, he said, he was able to tap into his connections as a potato broker – selling potatoes to chip companies across North America – to find a handful of facilities that could take on lines of Covered Bridge chip production in the short term.

Albright didn’t say where those facilities are located, but that the company is shipping all raw materials – everything from flavours, potatoes, bags and oils – there, where he and his staff have trained workers to make the products.

He said his main focus since March 1 has been on his employees. Covered Bridge Chips had 190 workers on the payroll at the time of the fire and Albright said the loss of employment is not lost on him.

“Our first thoughts were of our staff and that is where our focus has been since then,” he said. “Times are tough, people live paycheque to paycheque … we’ve been able to keep around 60, but the impact is not lost on us.”

He said on the 11th day after the fire the company was able to produce a first test batch, with the first production line ready to go on day 27.

“Sometimes I honestly have to take a step back,” Albright said Tuesday. “This is 30 days and it’s been 18 hours a day, seven days a week … It’s really been challenging.”

But don’t expect all the flavours to be restocked any time soon. He said there’s a limit to how much room is available in those other facilities.

That’s why Albright said he’s looking forward to opening a temporary plant in Woodstock, where freshly made chips will arrive in bulk from those facilities and can be flavoured and packed in that location to be shipped out.

He said the company was able to shift gears quickly thanks to off-site raw materials in other area warehouses that were untouched by the fire in the main facility.

“The only thing I lost at the plant was some raw materials, some finished goods, my equipment and my building,” he said in his Hartland office, away from the charred remains of the production facility. “All of my systems are in place, my head office is here, we had a few weeks of finished goods and Covered Bridge inventory here in this warehouse.”

He said other nearby warehouses were also filled with raw materials and inventory.

Besides the Woodstock warehouse, currently being renovated, Albright also plans to be back on the scorched facility site by the Trans-Canada Highway with a pop-up gift shop this summer.

“I am not sure just yet how that will work … but we want people to know we are still here, and we are going to rebuild.”

Then that will be the next challenge.

He said he’s still working through the insurance claim, but still plans to rebuild a permanent site.

Albright recalled wandering through the debris after the fire and finding a burned spade, otherwise still intact.

“I picked it up and someone asked me what I was doing,” he said. “I said that will break ground on the new building … the slogan we’ve been using is rise from the ashes, so that’s what we will do.”