Waterloo's factory floors used to run on grain, not code. Long before packaging automation was part of Ontario's manufacturing vocabulary, the city built its economy on distilling and light industry: a large distillery operated here before closing in 1992, and one of Waterloo's oldest manufacturing businesses traces its roots to grist and sawmills built by Mennonite settlers in the early 1800s. The city also earned the nickname "the Hartford of Canada" in the late 1800s for a cluster of insurance companies founded within a few decades of each other, an identity that stuck. It still fits. Today, insurance and technology firms dominate Waterloo's economy alongside its two universities, and manufacturing plays a smaller role in the local economy than it once did.

That shift hasn't erased the need for packaging equipment among the food and beverage producers serving the wider Waterloo Region and the rest of Ontario. We supply Mars Series vertical form-fill-seal (VFFS) machines for bagged and pouched product, and automatic case packers that carton finished product for shipment. Full specs for both machine types sit on our Mars Series VFFS category page and our automatic case packer category page. Waterloo doesn't have a facility of ours, but Ontario manufacturers reach us just as directly through our Ontario locations page and our food and beverage industry page, and our solutions page breaks down what happens between your first call and an installed line.