West Coast dry-foods processor Dan-D-Foods uses sound packaging machinery and techniques to steer through domestic and offshore expansion
By David Kosub
Living through the growing pains of the packaged foods business is not for the faint of heart or the easily discouraged. Dan On is neither, which greatly helped him steer his wholesale business—specializing in packaged peas, beans and dried fruits—through a touch-and-go expansion a dozen or so years ago.
In 1990, On had his mind firmly made up. If his business was going to survive, he would have to move it from its cramped 3,800-square-foot warehouse, near Vancouver’s Chinatown, to a larger 13,000-square-foot warehouse he had picked out on Main Street.