He introduces himself to us by removing his caps, his hairnet and his fluorescent colored safety straps. Erick Vachon may be president of Ideal Can, but he is found on the factory floor.
The only can manufacturer in Canada, his company has gone against the tide of offshoring. “We saw that the factories were closing in Beauce and heading towards Asia. We did the opposite: we took a production that was being done in Asia and we brought it back here, to Quebec. We are really proud of that,” he explains. Ideal Can is also the only factory to locally manufacture the iconic maple syrup containers, those used in particular by large grocery chains to sell the precious golden liquid.
And to succeed in repatriating this type of production here, the Vachon family relied on the skills of qualified foreign workers. Argentina, Chile, Italy, Algeria, China, Nigeria and recently, Indonesia: the flags of seven countries fly above the engine room.
With three production lines, the company now located in Saint-Apollinaire, on the South Shore in the Quebec region, produces approximately 2,200 cans per minute. “If you do the math, that’s a million ‘canes’ per shift. That’s roughly 20 53-foot trucks per day,” boasts Mr. Vachon.
Behind the factory gates, at the very beginning of the process, sheets of metal are cut, rolled up and sealed. Then, the gleaming cylinders run at full speed on a dizzying conveyor belt that goes up and down. They are then stacked mechanically by the hundreds, forming impassable walls in the warehouse: around 4.5 million metal containers with impeccable regularity. “Do you see what we’re doing? “Cannes”,” says Erick Vachon laughing alongside these columns.
Welcome expertise
The big boss soon advances towards the oldest of the three production lines and approaches Changli Li, a woman of Chinese origin who arrived at the very beginning of the adventure, in 2019, to inaugurate production. “She married a Quebecer and she has her Canadian passport now,” he said over the ambient noise. He speaks for her, because she lives with severe deafness, but has no difficulty operating “with great rigor”, he observes.
With the expansion of the business, the boss, now helped by his son Jean-Sébastien, has also recruited almost everywhere where the same production lines are used. “The idea is that these workers are already trained on the same machines they use and they in turn train us,” he explains.
This fully corresponds to the objectives of Hernan Asalgado, who plans to stay in Quebec for three or four more years, while he retires after three decades as an engineer in packaging manufacturing. “My goal is clear,” he said, the earplugs still firmly in his ears. “I will form a well-functioning factory and then leave. »
A little further, his Chilean compatriot Carlos Rivera also has 28 years of experience behind the coat. “I went from the extreme south to the extreme north,” he summarizes. For his part, he would like to settle in the country longer term and give his teenage son who remains in the country the opportunity to eventually find work here.
No one here is paid “low wages”, according to government categories, maintains Erick Vachon: “We never thought of hiring someone to save costs. We hire people for their expertise and knowledge. » He is aware of the growing debates over temporary labor. “What we have here is a success story, and they are part of it,” he said straight away on the phone the first time Duty contacted him.
Upside down
Originally from Beauce, the businessman has the DNA that makes the region’s entrepreneurs famous. He left school early, falling short of earning his high school diploma, despite several close friends teaching. He was an importer from China for 18 years, visited around sixty countries “to bring back the best”, and finally concluded that it was here, in Saint-Apollinaire, that millions of boxes of preserves.
Canned maple syrup may be a highly symbolic product, but no one had undertaken to repatriate its manufacturing. Today, there remains on the Quebec market “about a third of the “cans”” made in China, mainly containers sold by other companies for small-scale canning. “They do not have the same certifications,” says Erick Vachon.
When his son Jean-Sébastien started working in the company after finishing his university studies, he understood that transporting canned goods was increasing the cost price. “We transport containers of air,” he remarked.
It is also a question of quality for the two co-founders of Ideal Can: “Here, in Quebec, we have fairly strict standards in the agri-food sector. […] What interests us is the inside of the boxes, which comes into contact with the food,” explains Mr. Vachon. Because the preserve is also often a cauldron, he adds.
There is therefore very close quality control to ensure the absence of mercury, lead and bisphenol A. And the head of regulation and compliance, Hakim Zahar, also comes from the immigration. A qualified doctor in Algeria, he instead worked in a pharmaceutical company upon his arrival because of his difficulties in having his studies recognized.
Today, Mr. Zahar is a sort of “control tower” of the factory and indicates the modifications to be made. In his small office-laboratory, he also tests the canned goods to ensure that they withstand pressure of up to 500 kilograms. As soon as his demonstration for the visitors is finished, he leaves on his electric scooter to speak to a colleague at the other end of the factory.
“I am proud to work with these highly qualified people. We feel lucky,” Mr. Vachon said with a smile as he watched him leave.