Strong Intuition and Inspiration - Scotsburn Success
At the turn of the 20th Century, a group of farmers in and around Scotsburn, Pictou County collectively decided to build a creamery. Do you suppose they could even conceive of the notion that they had just started a company that would one day sell dairy products all over the world?
The Scotsburn Dairy Group's story of growth and success is about business inspiration and innovation. Scotsburn experienced tremendous growth in the first hundred years of operation. In 2000, it celebrated its centennial anniversary. Between 1999 and 2004 the company consolidated the Brookfield and Cape Breton Dairymen brands under the one Scotsburn product brand, for retail products across Atlantic Canada.
In 2001, sensing a market opportunity, Scotsburn approached a National Grocery Retailer with a proposal to produce its store brand products. This marked the beginning of exponential growth for the company and its shift to new market development. Over the past six years, the company has continued to use hard work and inspiration to transform its business, elevating Scotsburn to major contender status within the Canadian dairy product industry.
John MacKay, Scotsburn's Director of Marketing says, "We are a very different kind of company than we were in 2000."
The company underwent several major equipment and building upgrades, mostly to the ice cream plant, to accommodate the new contracts the company continued to land. All along, the company remained close to its roots as a producer-owned organization, something which John says serves as the foundation for the company's success.
Scotsburn now manufactures the private label ice cream and novelties for most of the National Grocer Retailers and some Food Service accounts across Canada, resulting in production of more than 200 products, ranging from ice cream to yogurt to frozen novelty bars. Scotsburn also makes ice cream products under the brand name of an International company who then exports these products to U.S. military bases in countries around the world.
The secret to its success, says John, is how closely Scotsburn works with its customers, formulating the right recipe for their products and brands; and the right taste for the target market.
A lot had changed since April 12, 1900, when that group of dairy farmers got together. But a couple of the most important things have never changed. The vision and entrepreneurial spirit of those turn of the century dairy farmers was a spark that ignited a flame in the generations that followed them. And the producers still own the company.
As the company explores new opportunities, John says the Scotsburn team continues to be, in true Nova Scotia and Pictou County fashion, "cautiously optimistic" about their new growth plan.
