Veteran firm chasing ag boom

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This article was published 17/01/2012 (5395 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

THE Cadorath group of companies is one of those enterprising Winnipeg firms that’s been around for 50 years but which most people have never heard of.

The company makes all of the augers for Zamboni machines, hundreds of remanufactured parts for Rolls-Royce helicopter engines and auger blades for some of the biggest brand names in agricultural equipment.

It’s the latter market into which Cadorath is making its latest expansion play.

The family-owned company was one of 20 Manitoba businesses with 90 delegates who took part in this fall’s huge ag-equipment show held every two years in Hanover, Germany, called Agritechnica 2011.

Manitoba companies came out of the event with about $45 million in business prospects over the next two years.

Cadorath leveraged the exposure there to gain entree with two different European companies. It’s now in negotiations with those companies to set up a joint venture to make proprietary auger blades Cadorath markets in North America under its own brand, Cadorath Uniflyte.

“The agriculture-equipment market is growing by 20 per cent per year,” said Mike Waite, Cadorath’s director of operations. “We are looking for a banner production year in 2012.”

The European joint venture would be a way for the 200-employee Winnipeg company (including workers in shops in Louisiana and Illinois) to overcome the high cost of shipping container-loads of augers from Winnipeg to Europe.

As it stands, Cadorath supplies augers and other parts to companies Buhler Industries, the large Saskatchewan equipment manufacturer Brandt Industries and multinationals such as John Deere and Briggs & Stratton.

Over the past two years, Cadorath has acquired a machine shop and a metals-coating company in Winnipeg and now is able to do the finishing on more of its own work.

“Those acquisitions fit like a glove,” said David Haines, general manager of Cadorath’s aerospace division. “Many of our aerospace parts require coating and machining and rather than subcontracting out that work, we can do more of it in-house.”

Although Cadorath has preferred to operate under the radar screen, that is starting to change.

Its auger production shop was used as a backdrop for Peter Bjornson, Manitoba’s minister of entrepreneurship, training and trade, to announce Monday the results of Manitoba ag equipment companies at the most recent Agritechnica.

“The agricultural-equipment industry is a great success story here,” Bjornson said. “The sector is diversified and the technology is being recognized around the world as some of the best.”

Bjornson said it’s innovation like Cadorath’s new “ultraflyte” auger blades that is propelling the industry along.

Robert Wynnobel, general manager of Cadorath’s Uniflyte division, said the company’s patented “uniflyte” auger blades will last longer because of a thickened edge. As well, the specialized concave tooling increases the auger’s capacity.

“We definitely have a better mouse trap here,” Wynnobel said. “We want to expand this into Europe.”

In the meantime, Cadorath is also trying to convert its long-standing customers like Buhler and Brandt to its newly designed auger styles.

martin.cash@freepress.mb.ca