January 26, 2022
Hardy Buoys Smoked Fish, founded in 1994 by Bruce and Carol Dirom, is a provider to major grocery store chains across Canada. As its product demand grew, the company looked to automate its packaging line.
Bruce Dirom, founder and president of Hardy Buoys, explained that before the pandemic, the company had been increasing sales but was struggling for three years to attract plant floor workers in spite of the high unemployment rate at its Port Hardy B.C. facility. This struggle only became more of a challenge as the pandemic emerged, so the company had to short some of its orders, restricting customer expansion. But as product demand continued to grow, Hardy Buoys had to embrace more automated solutions.
Plan It offered its ROTOBAGGER™ machine, which includes a multi-head weigher, the ROTOBAGGER™—a pre-made pouch machine with a platform and sanitary washdown inclined conveyor. This equipment requires only four operators, saving Hardy Buoys $3,500 per week in labor.
“We expressed what we were doing with our current demands and what our future demands may be,” Dirom said. “We were probably doing 2000 packages a day and we expected we’d need to get to 5000 packages a day, so we got a machine that could do 10,000 packages a day.”
Bruce Dirom, founder and president of Hardy Buoys
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