Region: Lindsay
[Opening sequence]
[Text on screen – FedDev Ontario, Road to Success]
[Text on screen - Mariposa Dairy Ltd.
Lindsay, Ontario - Founded: 1989]
Mariposa Dairy started in 1989 as a small family business and where we are today was not the plan.
I don't think we ever even tasted goat cheese before.
We had people knocking on our door and we saw this as a great opportunity.
[Sharon Vandenberg - Co-owner/ Operator,
Mariposa Dairy Ltd.]
My original business goal was to have a few goats – 25, 30 – to be at home, to raise our children and sell some of the cheese from the farm. And never dreamed that it would become what it is today.
[Bruce Vandenberg - Co-owner/ Operator, Mariposa Dairy Ltd.]
FedDev Ontario has helped us greatly. We've been growing very, very fast and every time we've had to do a major movement, FedDev Ontario has been there, given us funding and that has helped us grow to be one of the larger dairy goat herders in Ontario.
The loans that we received from FedDev Ontario we've used for automation, we've used for training of our staff, we've used for building new lines, we've also used it for infrastructure and we've also used it to move into new cheese plants twice.
[Text on screen - 1989 : 800 square foot facility, 2016 : 40,000 square foot plant]
In 2015, we received an order for 11 tractor trailer loads of Celebrity goat cheese, which is 600,000 pieces.
[Switch to Sharon Vandenberg]
We could never have done that in the other plant.
[Switch to Bruce Vandenberg]
That's why we had to build the new facility. We moved in in the summer time, we honoured the order. It was a tremendous feeling that we could fill that kind of order.
Orders like that are great for the economy and the greatest thing about this whole business is, 80 cents of every dollar we receive stays in Ontario and everyone benefits by that.
[Text on screen – www.FedDevOntario.gc.ca Follow us @FedDevOntario]
[FedDev Ontario identifier and Canada wordmark]