Proudly part of the Barnhardt Family of Businesses, NCFI boasts a unique history that starts in 1964. Polyurethanes were still a relatively new rubber substitute polymer, and Dr. H.W. “Ace” Bradley—a research chemist and WWII veteran of the Manhattan Project—and the Barnhardt Family of Charlotte recognized the potential of this new technology.

Bradley eventually developed the “One Shot” flexible foam method, a continuous production process that combines polymer creation with foaming and is currently the industry standard. NCFI has since established itself as a prominent pioneer in the development of rigid and flexible polyurethanes for use in construction, geotechnical, and custom applications.

Celebrating 60
Now observing its 60^th anniversary, the company notes some of the reasons behind its success and illustrious status in the industry.

“We have superior teammates and colleagues who care about each other,” says Vice President, John Zomer. “They also care about the success of NCFI and the success of our customers. That’s really what I see.”

This dedication to customers and to “doing the right thing by our customers and our employees” comes from its parent company, Barnhardt Manufacturing, and down through NCFI, says Will Jarrell, Executive Vice President of Custom Formulated Products.

“We’ve always been dedicated. It’s a culture we’ve developed over the years, and it has everything to do with the people we have,” he says. “We’ve worked hard to develop that culture and keep hiring people who have that kind of attitude, where you do what you need to make sure the customer is happy and satisfied, and at the same time look beyond to ask them, ‘if you can have anything, what would that be?’ and then go from there.”

Concerning the company’s dedication to its customers and its ability to solve problems in the polyurethane and systems business, NCFI offers a customized solution, working with its customers to optimize the specific polyurethanes the company makes for them.

“Chemicals are tailored to the customer’s technical and processing capabilities,” says Zomer. “As part of that, we offer very good quality and personal service. We communicate directly with our customers. We periodically visit our customers’ locations to ensure we’re building relationships not only with the decision-makers in the front office, but the people who are actually using and processing the chemicals in the plant.”

The NCFI way
In addition to a culture of doing what’s needed for the customer, NCFI is methodical in ensuring careful selection of its employees, adds Jarrell. “They’re people who care about other people—not just customers, but other people,” he says. “Then you build on top of that with technical prowess. We’ve worked hard to attract and hold on to these people who are dedicated to customers.”

Many people who come to work for NCFI haven’t experienced that level of care and commitment before, and they’re excited to see it, he says.

“We’re not afraid to go the extra mile for the customer. Many times those folks are leaving a situation where they feel like relationships they’ve built over the years aren’t the focus anymore. When they come over to us, we get in there, get our hands dirty, and make sure everything is right for the customer.”

In short, customer service is a vital, ongoing priority for the company.

“I think it’s the priority for the company,” says Jarrell. “Our technical team is second to none in the industry.” On top of that, those people are also dedicated to the customer relationships they’ve built over the years. “It’s extremely important to them, because not only are they customers of ours, but they’re also friends of ours.”

It’s not only Customer Service, Zomer adds, but Technical Service that truly makes an important difference.

“We take orders for polyurethane systems, and Operations mix them all together. The systems must be put together consistently, each time, the way the customer needs them. So it’s Operations, Customer Service and Technical Service, and it’s follow-up and follow-through to make sure we do a good job of consistency and maintaining the business.”

While other companies try to provide a similar service, Zomer has found NCFI excels at it in a practical way that has resulted in “very happy” customers.

Move into metal
When it comes to the company’s product lines, NCFI has recently moved into the insulated metal panel market even though traditionally it has always been very strong in rigid polyurethane spray foam and other rigid systems.

“It’s something we’ve always known how to do and always wanted to, but just never had a focus on that market. Of course, there’s a lot of volume there. We’re in a mode where we’re trying to grow our business and increase our presence in the rigid foam insulation space, and it just plays along with our stature in the spray foam business,” Jarrell says.

As one of the top suppliers in the spray foam industry, the company naturally wants to move into being one of the top suppliers in the rigid foam insulation business, too.

“We’ve always had systems to play in that market,” says Zomer. “But what we realized is that we want to couple these systems technology with our service and grow our share in that market space.”

Superior service
As proficient as NCFI has been on the technical side of production, it’s the customer service side that has brought it much of its success over its 60 years.

“There’s a need right now in industry for customer service,” says Jarrell. “With lots of the big companies, there are all kinds of internal things they have to deal with, and that they’re going through, while we’re a fairly flat organization. Decisions are made quickly. There’s not a lot of bureaucracy to go through as far as decision-making goes. We put people in place that know what they’re doing and let them do it.”

Even as a smaller company competing in the industry, NCFI possesses the technical skills required to succeed while not losing focus on its clientele.

“The customer-focus portion of it is everything to us. These customers are our friends, people that we’ve developed relationships with over the years, and we don’t want to disappoint friends,” Jarrell says. This also extends to being “very careful” about who to bring on as staff, making sure they fit that model and are dedicated to the customer.

Hiring the right people is key, he adds, and serves to bolster the company culture that NCFI works so hard to maintain. “We hire people who treat customers like you would want to be treated yourself. I think that’s it, and then also being able to make decisions quickly rather than deferring them to 15 other people. We do that quickly and then move on.”

The company also enjoys active engagement not only internally but with its customers. “The better a company is with internal engagement and communication and positivity, the better that company performs,” says Zomer. “And I really think NCFI is one of those companies with a great employee base, high engagement, and good communication, which can only help us on the outside when we go to sell our products and services out in the marketplace.”

Fostering positive engagement and communication has resulted in employees who have been with the company for decades, including Jarrell himself. “I’ve been with NCFI for 31 years,” he says. “Essentially my entire life, and it seems like everybody wants to come to work for us here because they’re not encumbered by all the things they would be encumbered by with somebody a little bit bigger.”

If you get somebody good, Jarrell adds, you need to reward them and you need to appreciate them—another step in maintaining positive company culture. “And that’s what we’re trying to do and why we’re having a 60^th celebration at our facility, bringing in some of the best customers down there just to say thank you and celebrate 60 years.”

While six good decades are indeed an admirable achievement, Jarrell stresses that NCFI doesn’t like to dwell on its success too much, but would rather keep its focus on the present, with an eye to the future and everything that still needs to be done.

“We have respect for it and celebrate it, but we try not to get hung up too much on it, although we are very proud of where we’ve come from,” is Jarrell’s take on NCFI’s success.

Numerous employees and customers have helped shape NCFI over the years, molding it into what it is today and will continue to be for the next 60 to come.

“We have lots of accomplishments, but we tend to have one goal,” Jarrell says. “Let’s move on to the next thing. Nobody’s sitting around tooting their own horn, which is another part of our culture. It’s about just getting the job done.”

The post Chemical Capabilities: NCFI Gets the Job Done<p class="company">NCFI Polyurethanes</p> appeared first on Manufacturing In Focus.

Ken Baker, Chief Executive Officer since 2015, credits the company’s relationship with EBSCO for allowing a lot of flexibility on the path to growth. EBSCO runs like a private equity firm in that it offers capital for projects, but it also has a long-term mentality that allows Bailey to take a longer-term horizon in the decision-making process.

Baker explains that recent acquisitions by Bailey have helped to form the nucleus of the company today. These include Sure Grip Controls in 2015, Hydrolico in 2022, and IEC (Industrial Electronic Controls) in 2023, the latter as a product add-on for Sure Grip. These acquisitions helped to change the structure of the Bailey business into two distinct units: hydraulics and electronics, which Chris Rowley and Darren Lockyer have respectively been in charge of for two years now.

Throughout these recent moves, Bailey’s territory has expanded considerably to include locations in Montreal, Quebec; Grand Rapids, Michigan; and Victoria, British Columbia. The business also boasts engineering and sourcing capabilities out of Chennai, India.

Bailey offers customizable as well as standard off-the-shelf solutions and quick turnaround thanks to lower costs and the use of both domestic and overseas manufacturing. This provides customers with an array of options to meet their standards and give them technical expertise regarding supply chain and logistics. Everyone at Bailey wants to engage with clients to understand their needs and offer them a full suite of products for any project they desire.

Recent endeavors have spurred Bailey’s ongoing market growth. Getting into the single axis joystick market in 2021 allowed the team to fill a need in that market that customers were asking for, Lockyer says, leading to an additional project launch of a new ergonomic handle in 2022. This year, a new armrest product was launched in response to customer needs once again, as Bailey’s joysticks and handles mount into an armrest, which some customers found difficult to source reliably.

Rowley shares that the hydraulics side recently launched what it calls its MVP Program (motors, valves, and pumps) which has dovetailed nicely with the additional technical expertise from the acquisition of Hydrolico. Bailey’s reputation was built on cylinders for such a long time that some customers only knew the company for that singular offering, so this program will promote the individual pieces of the hydraulics division.

Baker says that a high level of customer service has always been a hallmark of Bailey International, alongside being a marketplace differentiator for nearly 50 years. From engineering and technical support to product breadth and availability, to stocking programs and customer support, “We want to make sure our customers feel cared for,” he says.

This approach is summed up in the term coined by Lockyer: “Fingertip-to-Tooltip,” which means that the business wants to ensure that it has product range and technical support capabilities at every level, from the human interface elements of a mobile machine like joysticks, handles, or pedals to the electronics, hydraulics, and actuators inside it. Rowley says that this approach resonates with customers because it relates to how they interact with the company’s equipment.

The focus is also aimed at sustainable practices. Baker says that the company has a strategic initiative on minimizing its negative environmental impact and it is a key tenet of its current 10-year strategy. The hydraulics division recently achieved ISO 14001 status, and work in that area has allowed the company to identify opportunities for reducing waste streams. For example, a baler has been brought in to much more aggressively recycle cardboard, an ever-present element in receiving and shipping.

Bailey has also partnered with a group to create high-efficiency light bulbs and ballasts to waste less electricity. Several company sites have been engaging in different practices to promote recycling and waste control, from recycling plastic masks, gloves, and packaging to using lower-energy technologies and encouraging more creative solutions by both management and employees to minimize environmental impact.

A move toward greener practices or, indeed, top-tier customer service like Bailey offers is simply impossible without a dedicated and capable workforce. The company believes in empowering customers to win by empowering its team. Over the past few years, it has concentrated on continuing to train, educate, and provide opportunities to its employees because, as Rowley says, they are the ones who make the business by engaging with customers. Recent endeavors have focused on engaging and listening to employees to ensure they have a say in the company’s direction.

From a market perspective, 2024 has not generally been a strong year thus far; however, according to Baker, the company is projecting modest growth for its fiscal year. As industries continue to rebound from COVID-19, higher interest rates and softening markets have become a new norm. Bailey’s growth will be driven by opportunity wins and an increased market share, but many industries that Bailey follows like construction, agriculture, and more are notably struggling.

From a technology point of view, electrification and the application of artificial intelligence are going to be aspects to watch, especially as control systems continue to evolve to leverage more of these burgeoning technologies.

As Bailey develops more products in-house and sources appropriate partners for its operations, it draws ever closer to becoming a true one-stop shop. Moving further toward this goal will help more firmly establish strong customer relationships, which will in turn give customers a trusted partner to turn to and minimize procurement partners they must work with on a project.

Although some of the company’s clients are experiencing tough times because of market conditions, Bailey is doing everything it can to provide support and establish relationships to be viewed as a valued partner. “We want to be the first call a customer makes for help to solve problems,” Rowley says, and the company wants to be seen as an expert not just in mobile hydraulics but in problem-solving writ large.

According to Baker, Bailey is in the closing stages of a multi-million-dollar investment in its domestic manufacturing operation in Knoxville, as well as being in the planning phase of expanding domestic manufacturing in North America—in Montreal specifically. As both a manufacturer and distributor, the company having strong manufacturing capability domestically is an important recent milestone, he says.

In Victoria, the company will be moving its electronics operations into a new headquarters around 2026. Along with the MVP program, more new product developments are soon to be released, with more strategic acquisitions coming further down the line to help bolster growth.

Bailey International has worked hard in the past two years to make sure to serve customers who need any combination of its hydraulics, electro-hydraulics, or electronics solutions. The company will continue to fulfill its fingertip-to-tooltip mission. As Baker says, “There’s still more to go but we want to ensure to keep our unified sales approach to the marketplace.”

The post The First-Call Problem Solvers<p class="company">Bailey International</p> appeared first on Manufacturing In Focus.

METALCON quickly became an industry staple after Founder, Chairman, and Chief Executive Officer Frank Stasiowski of PSMJ Resources, Inc. partnered with the Metal Construction Association in 1991 to launch the show. “It really took off,” Vice President Judy Geller says. “It filled a niche in the market for something important.”

Focusing on this specific niche has been key to the event’s popularity. “Rather than going to a construction event where you’re pushed and pulled into 20 different directions and there’s so much going on, METALCON focuses exclusively on the application of metal in construction and design,” Geller explains. “It means that there’s an opportunity to really see the newest innovations and, probably even more importantly, talk to participants in the industry who really are experts in the application of metal.”

While the show has a specific focus, its attendees vary widely. Virtually anyone who works with metal in design or construction will benefit from attending. This includes manufacturers, suppliers, distributors, engineers, contractors, architects, specifiers, and designers.

“If you’re a contractor or you’re an architect, a developer, a specifier or designer—whatever role you may have—you have various questions, challenges, and solutions, and METALCON is going to have that expertise on-site to help you address your challenges and help you [find] solutions and real information on the spot,” Geller says.

There is also a wide variety within each of these professional categories represented. For instance, “There’s a huge spectrum of contractors that would benefit from attending the show,” she says. “It could be anyone from a general contractor to a roofing contractor to a sidewall and gutter contractor.”

Architects considering metal as a building option will find a wealth of knowledge at the show. For example, they “may be trying to figure out, ‘Do I want to do a metal or an asphalt roof?’ They’re going to want to see the newest options.”

They can also experience the aesthetics of metal as a building material. “You can do all kinds of beautiful designs using metal,” she says. “It’s not just plain old metal anymore; you can make it really quite stunning.”

It should come as no surprise that, with so much to offer to so many different professionals, the turnout at METALCON each year includes “all of the major and minor players who are involved in metal, whether it’s installing, selling, designing, fabricating, buying, or designing.” And that goes for more than just the attendees, as the exhibitors also cover the full gamut of the industry. There are nearly 30 categories of exhibitors at this year’s METALCON, covering everything from panels, decorative metal, roof-top products, coatings, fenestration, and framing to insulation, equipment, modular construction systems, energy-efficient applications, and custom fabrication, just to name a few.

“We call it the A-to-Z spectrum of manufacturers, suppliers, distributors, consultants. Any kind of solution provider is at METALCON,” Geller says.

A total of 250 exhibitors are slated to be at this year’s show. “There’s a lot going on at METALCON. The entire industry is there and there’s an opportunity for the attendees to explore everything that’s new and innovative in metal construction and design, from roofing to wall panels, to you name it. We cover any application of metal in the entire building envelope.”

There will be over 35 free educational sessions in the exhibit hall, conveniently located right on the show floor. Each session takes place at one of four learning centers with different areas of focus. For example, the Technical Knowhow Learning Center focuses on different technical issues of applying metal, while the Best Practices Learning Center educates attendees on the business aspect of applying metal. This center is particularly helpful for professionals looking to broaden their horizons. A typical example is “a roofing contractor who only does asphalt roofing, that is interested in expanding their business and embracing metals,” says Geller. “We’re going to be able to help those who are new to metal add it to their businesses.”

New for 2024 is a learning center focused on building performance. “There’s a lot of focus on building performance in this day and age because of sustainability, net zero goals, recyclability, and climate,” she says. “Metal can play a crucial role in building performance, particularly in terms of sustainability and durability in the face of severe weather. That is why we created this Building Performance Learning Center to focus on those specific issues.”

Of course, networking is another key advantage of attending the show. “METALCON provides absolutely outstanding networking opportunities as well. After all, the “Who’s Who” of the industry is there.”

METALCON will be introducing a number of new networking opportunities this year, in addition to keeping the existing ones. “We are going to be having a speed networking event in an area of the show floor called The Exchange,” Geller says, “and we’re also offering small group roundtable discussions where there will be multiple topics.” Each roundtable will have a moderator and will focus on a timely issue. For instance, “one of the topics may be metal mythbusters. There are many myths about applying metal, and this is going to be a roundtable forum to talk about it.”

A big networking party will open the event. “Everybody is invited to attend our ‘Metal Mash Up’ welcome party on Wednesday afternoon,” says Geller. “We’ll have music and snacks and drinks, and it will just be an opportunity to really kick off the event in a fun way, and we’re doing that right in the exhibit hall on the floor. And then on Thursday, we are going to be having a networking reception in an area of the show floor called The Backyard, which is also new this year. And in ‘The Backyard,’ you’re going to be able to play simulated golf, take a little break from all of the innovation and education on the show floor. It’s going to be just a fun area to relax, putt for a few holes.”

The result is a show that offers both breadth and depth, providing something for everyone. “There’s a lot going on in terms of the vast spectrum of exhibitors, the depth of education we’re offering, the huge focus we have on networking this year. I would call that our triumvirate of what’s important at the event this year.”

The team will keep thinking ahead to continue to improve and expand the tradeshow. “We always have future plans,” Geller says. “We’re always going to be looking at how to expand the show and make sure that it is relevant to the industry and people who want to participate in the industry. We are always looking for opportunities to expand on our education. This year, it’s building performance; next year, it’s going to be something else.”

The convention uses feedback to ensure that it will deliver the tradeshow experience that industry insiders want in the future. “A lot of times, our new ideas come from the evaluations that we put out to our exhibitors and the attendees,” she says. “They give us some really amazing clues about what they are looking for, and we definitely do take those to heart.”

This year’s show in Atlanta will draw a sizable crowd, and next year, the tradeshow’s Las Vegas location is expected to draw very large numbers, based on past experience. “Las Vegas is always a massive year for METALCON. It’s always exciting, and I know that we’ll have all kinds of new things to be offering.” So mark your calendars for this year’s show—and next year’s as well. There is too much to experience at METALCON to miss this major industry event!

The post Metal’s Main Event<p class="company">METALCON</p> appeared first on Manufacturing In Focus.

LLS has a team of certified EPA HVAC specialists who service all makes and models of aquariums. The company recognizes that an aquarium, lobster tanks included, is a living ecosystem, and routine maintenance is crucial in maintaining a well-functioning mechanical system to support the marine species that live within.

Not only does LLS offer its White Glove Quarterly Service (Full Service, every three months), it responds within 24 hours to emergencies in its service areas. In addition, LLS holds patents on innovative features including the Raintray Bio Filtration System™, Asset Protection™ built into every tank it manufactures, and the unique Signature Shellfish Spa™, set to be an industry game-changer.

To learn more about LLS’s products and services that guarantee supermarkets and restaurants can offer fresh, succulent, and healthy seafood products—lobster, oysters, clams, scallops, or crab—while ensuring the seafood department operates efficiently, we spoke with Thomas Olsen, company President and CEO.

Before Olsen took us back to LLS’s beginnings in 1989, he told us one thing that was important for readers to understand. “I cannot talk about my company or where we are today without talking about my Christian faith, which is the reason for our success. We are family-owned and faith-driven, and we feel our reason for being is serving others, doing good in the community, and giving back.”

The story behind Lobster Life Systems and marine salt
LLS was founded by chemist Richard Tokosh, who Olsen says held multiple patents for formulas he developed for cosmetics and soaps sold by Avon, as well as the Intuition razor with a built-in soap dispenser. But his venture into manufacturing marine salt was serendipitous. According to Olsen, Tokosh was having dinner with a friend who confided about difficulties in keeping fish alive in his aquarium and wondered if Tokosh could help, since he was knowledgeable about the different salts used in soap.

Tokosh had a good relationship with chemists at the University of Rhode Island’s oceanography department and together they formulated a marine salt, which Tokosh began manufacturing in his garage and giving to friends who found their fish thriving on it. Then he started selling it to local pet stores and supermarkets for use in live lobster tanks. At the time he was still working for Avon, but the marine salt business became so successful that he acquired a larger facility and hired his first employee, and so LLS was born.

The high-quality marine salt continues to be a cornerstone of the company to this day, with the product sold in 40-pound boxes in the eastern U.S. and shipped by truck to a distributor on the west coast.

Meanwhile, in 1989, Olsen was working his way through the seafood industry, starting at an independent fish market and then at ShopRite as seafood manager at the retail level, before being hired by the parent company, Wakefern Food, in a corporate position as seafood merchandiser. “I was planning new stores, recommending equipment and whatever it takes to increase sales, and I was buying lobster tanks from LLS,” he says.

Olsen had also developed a good relationship with Tokosh and, in 2012, he approached him about buying the company, as at age 70 he was ready to retire.

“He told me, ‘I have an investor who has a ton of money who wants to buy my company, but zero knowledge about the industry, and I have you, with a ton of knowledge and zero money. But I am not going to take the blood and sweat I put into this company and hand it over to an investor who will destroy it, as all investors understand is dollars and cents. You are the best person I know to grow the company.’”

By 2014, Olsen was ready. “After we talked numbers, I cashed out everything I owned, my 401(k), and my savings account, refinanced my house, and bought the company. To his credit, Richard held the note, and I repaid him over time.”

Custom manufacturing and advanced systems
10 years later, Tokosh’s belief in Olsen’s extensive 26-year industry experience and knowledge, and trust that he could “elevate LLS into a whole new stratosphere,” has been validated. Today it is a North American-wide company, with a 45 percent growth rate since 2014 and patented, innovative features, products, and services that put it ahead of the competition.

There are other companies manufacturing lobster tanks in an assembly line format, with standard sizes, “but we don’t do that. Everything we make is made by hand and made to order, and this is where we have a leg up, because I know from experience that every bit of real estate in a supermarket is valuable, and the merchandiser’s job is to capitalize on that.”

He shares an example of a situation where the equipment purchasing agent is dealing with a 31-inch space to fit in a lobster tank and the only offerings are either an inch too long or three inches too short, leaving an empty space that is too small to be used profitably. “So, we work with the blueprint, and we build the tank to fit and capitalize on sales,” he says.

“I live through the eyes of our customers (supermarkets, restaurants, and wholesalers); I know what they look for, how they operate, what goes on behind the counter, and I share this with my team so they can understand the world we service. Many companies operate in the red on lobsters and where we come in is with some of the features we have built into our tanks that will keep the lobster alive longer and make it easier for our associates to maintain and clean the tank, ultimately saving them money.”

Innovative offerings
In the event of a power or pump failure which prevents oxygen flowing into the water, lobsters will die, because they cannot live in stagnant water for more than an hour and will suffocate due to lack of oxygen. To overcome this, LLS has devised a system which, through the force of gravity when the power has failed, will allow the water to drop into a holding tank beneath the visible tank, allowing the lobsters to live up to 10 hours outside water. When the power returns, the tank will automatically fill up again.

“We call this Asset Protection™, the asset being the lobster, because the fatality rate has been greatly reduced,” Olsen shares.

Before lobsters can be put into a display case, they need to be purged—that is, placed in a container with cold water poured on their backs and left there for 20 minutes to urinate and defecate and acclimatize themselves to their new environment. Dealing with the process is a messy, unpleasant procedure for employees, often resulting in spills on the floor and splashes on workers, as store employees have to remove the lobsters and empty buckets of purged water. But LLS’ patented Self-contained Purge System has ended the messiness.

Under the display tank is a separate tank in which the lobsters are placed, and which is filled up with water from the display tank. After 20 minutes, the purge water is drained and the lobsters are removed, inspected, and then placed in the display tank, which has refilled. “We have made the process easy and sanitary. It’s a feather in our cap as no one else has done that and we’ve patented it.”

LLS’s newest product offer, developed and perfected over the last five years, is its Signature Shellfish Spa™. It is designed specifically for raw bar restaurants or any retailer who wants to up their seafood game by offering varieties of shellfish—mollusks, oysters, clams, steamers—that are the cleanest, freshest, and safest possible.

In an attractive unit, easily serviced from behind, ice-cold, UV-sterilized water is circulated and rained down upon multiple layers of shellfish varieties, giving overlooked varieties center stage. The shellfish are plump and juicy, the clams are sand-free, and even more important, they are clean. There’s an inherent danger in eating raw shellfish, as Olsen explains. “In their natural environment, clams and oysters are filter feeders, and they are taking in pathogens as they keep the water we swim in clean. We want to make the shellfish clean and safe for people to eat, and when the sterilized water passes through them, the pathogens are killed off,” he says.

“The UV-sterilization units we use are manufactured by Aqua Ultraviolet out of California, one of the largest producers of this type of unit. We put in two of them, so our units are rated to treat up to 300 gallons of water, although we only circulate 70 gallons. We overtreat as we understand the risks involved with raw seafood and we want to eliminate the risks.”

LLS engaged an independent laboratory to run comparison tests on seafood kept in the spa and refrigerated seafood. The tests showed that the amounts of coliform bacteria in refrigerated shellfish actually increased over time, whereas the amounts in shellfish from the spa decreased over time. The longer the time in the spa, the greater the decrease, while the converse was true for the refrigerated shellfish: the longer the latter were kept refrigerated, the more the bacteria proliferated.

This independent study gave Olsen the confidence to take the Signature Shellfish Spa™ to national restaurant shows in New York and Chicago, and since then interest has grown, with restaurants and retailers who have purchased the units indicating overwhelmingly positive responses from consumers and increased sales of over 50 percent.

The future for LLS
“Ours is a growing business,” Olsen concludes, “and I believe it is growing because we put our faith and trust in God. I’m not going to tell you I am the smartest businessman or a brilliant marketer, but I think our success is because of our faith and our commitment to our customers,” he says.

“We maintain a relationship with customers after our sales, and we do pride ourselves on these relationships and on being there for them when they call for advice. We remember who they are and when they call, we speak directly to them—there’s no automated answering service.” Something which this writer can verify!

The post Where Fresh Comes to Life<p class="company">Lobster Life Systems</p> appeared first on Manufacturing In Focus.