The Growth Journey of Our Family Business
As a family company, Dure Foods Ltd. started out small and still remains small enough to truly care for each and every product and customer. Over it’s almost 40-year life span, Dure Foods has been building a family company based on our original values to create a trustworthy brand that creates quality food products.
Despite the setbacks and challenges that growing a family business poses, Dure Foods has successfully scaled while maintaining strong commitment to our community, our standards, and our core mission.
Founding
The idea for Dure Foods was conceived by Scott Malcolm in 1978 and began operating under this one-man team. He rented a corner space in a dilapidated Brantford, Ontario, warehouse to begin filling orders for liquid dish soap, Dure’s first product.
Malcolm hired his first employee to help him at the warehouse, and they grew such a strong bond that the two still work together today.
Initial Stages of Growth
By the end of the first five years of operation, Malcolm was able to hire a staff of five to help him pack soap, sugar, and coffee whiteners. Building off the specialty coffee trend of the 90s, Dure Foods began developing products within this niche. Our company found success with flavoured cappuccino mixes and began growing exponentially.
Soon after, Malcolm was able to construct a brand new packaging facility and even added on additional square footage a few years later to add more loading docks and rooms for production.
The Family Business
Scott Malcolm’s two sons later joined him in the family business, flanking him to help direct and guide the company through the many stages of growth, learning, and success. The three of them faced the same challenges large corporations must deal with, but as a smaller team with fewer resources, it proved to be a bit more testing.
Overcoming Challenges
They needed to remain ahead of the competition, constantly innovating and finding something unique they could add to the market. Eventually they found a successful and comfortable niche in fine blended powders such as coffee drinks, soup bases, teas, mousses, gravies and creamers.
Another challenge came in building relationships with both suppliers and with customers in order to provide the best products and receive the best reactions. For a small company like Dure Foods, there are fewer connections already built-in, and these relationships must be forged from the ground up through our own dedication to networking and pitching.
While this was a large challenge to the Malcolms, it also provided an opportunity for Dure Foods to create authentic relationships formed out of genuine alignment of values and goals, rather than out of corporate loyalty or industrial red tape.
Maintenance of Quality and Values
Even after building up a large team of production staff and executive members, Dure Foods has still been able to maintain the closeness and care that the original one-man operation began with.
Despite the extra complications that a family-operated business must take on compared to corporations, Dure Foods has been able to remain in a period of growth and success since its founding due to its primary goal of producing incredibly high-quality food products to each and every customer.
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