You’ve likely seen the iconic Redpath Sugar refinery on the Toronto waterfront, which takes raw sugarcane from South and Central America and processes it into bulk granulated sugar, powdered sugar, and brown sugar. What you might not know is that a portion of that sugar gets shipped to a plant in the Bay of Quinte, where many food products are manufactured in the Redpath Sugar plant in Belleville.

Belleville Redpath Sugar Plant Provides Secure Employment

The Redpath Sugar plant in Belleville currently employs over 90 local residents directly. In addition to that total, other local skilled workers are contracted by the company to perform maintenance work at the plant and to ship the sugar products. For instance, a Belleville company is the exclusive courier of the bulk sugar from Toronto to Belleville, and the All-Can Pro Logistics and Vision Transportation warehouses in Belleville are frequently used.

The plant has been in operation for 30 years in the region, and has been under the ownership of Redpath since 2011, providing secure jobs in the Bay of Quinte. General Manager, Phil Guglielmi, explains how local services and expertise have helped to support the operation in Belleville:

“We recruited heavily from the skilled trades within the region, and we’ve been in contact with Loyalist College and QEDC, which are there to help us. We’ve hired most of our workforce locally, with the help of agencies in the Bay of Quinte area.”

When seasonal demand increases, Redpath also uses local agencies to hire temporary workers to help with the additional workload. The company is hiring Belleville residents and contracting local companies, which supports the city’s small business owners. All around, Redpath is great for Belleville business.

Redpath Is Creating New Jobs Through Manufacturing Innovation

In 2017, two new packaging lines were added to the plant, which created 10 more jobs at Redpath. The lines were added to upgrade packaging capabilities in order to respond to customers’ changing (and growing) demands.

Now the company can provide more products and packages to the domestic Canadian market. Research by the company predicts that the same demand will increase in the United States, meaning there will be plenty of work to do and plenty of products to be made in the Belleville plant.

The owners of Redpath (the ASR Group) are committed to reinvestment and new product development well into the future. There’s even a special group within the company that works on new product formats and continuous improvement. In other words, the company takes a long-term view of the business and is planning for continued success and innovation.

Redpath Sugar Contributes to the Bay of Quinte Manufacturing Sector

Redpath Sugar is an important and long-standing brand in Canada, which has chosen Belleville as its home for food product manufacturing. Belleville has a strong industrial sector, and organizations such as the QEDC (Quinte Economic Development Commission) help to support, expand, and attract manufacturing to the region. Through the QEDC supporting large local companies, secure jobs in the Bay of Quinte increase, and the smaller businesses that support manufacturing in the region are able to thrive.

To learn more about the manufacturing sector in Belleville, and the work of the QEDC, you can find them online.

This article is sponsored by Quinte Economic Development Commission. 
If you have any questions about the information in this article, please contact the QEDC at 613.961.7990.