Business Profile: Kensington Metal Products

Kensington Metal Products prides itself on being the “only manufacturer of snowblowers in Atlantic Canada.” However, this Prince Edward Island shop offers much more than snowblowers, serving as a multi-purpose metalworking shop that’s committed to all facets of its local community, from the largest industries to the business down the road.

“We are on the island. We don’t go off the island. So all of our business is local,” explains Kent MacLeod, general manager for Kensington Metal Products (KMP), centrally located in the town of Kensington, 15 minutes drive from Summerside and 40 minutes from Charlottetown.

When people think of PEI, they think potatoes. For KMP, when it comes to potatoes, they think of Cavendish Farms, a member of the Irving Group of Companies and the fourth largest producer of frozen potato products in North America.

KMP partly owes its origins to the prolific potato producer. In 2000, MacLeod began working for Precision Mechanical, a company focused on installing and upgrading mechanical components in commercial and industrial buildings. His role had him working onsite at a local Cavendish Farms building. At the time it was customary to have office trailers onsite. Eventually, however, Cavendish decided they wanted the trailers removed.

Precision Mechanical was forced to rent a place in order to house all of the trailers. However, a group of workers explored the option of building their own site. In this process, the group decided to expand the operation to include a line-up of equipment and machines.

“We figured, why don’t we just start another company,” says MacLeod. “We can work off that.” It was this decision that eventually led to the formation of Kensington Metal Products.

Operating under its parent company, Precision Mechanical, KMP launched in 2004 and has been growing ever since.

Because of the group’s pre-existing relationship, KMP was able to get its foot in the door at Cavendish Farms, which made a huge difference in the company’s early days, and it’s no surprise that Cavendish Farms is KMP’s largest customer.

“We are at Cavendish farms weekly,” says MacLeod. “We specialize in stainless steel, pressurized tanks, conveyors, and modifications. And we install new equipment all over the island.”

Another major local customer is BioVectra Pharmaceuticals in Charlottetown, where KMP manufacturers a lot of stainless steel tanks for the company.

Word of mouth and a great reputation have helped KMP grow. In 2011, the company underwent a major expansion, doubling the square footage of its shop. Today, it’s 15,000 square feet with room to grow.

For the most part, KMP focuses on repairs and modifications. “The day-to-day business that keeps us busy is the local farmers, fisherman and general public that bring in half-day type jobs,” explains MacLeod. “Our machinist is quite busy with work from farmers. We have Kensington Agriculture, which is a farm dealership up the road, we do a lot of machine work for them.”

One of the challenges of working in a machine shop is the ebbs and flows of work. There are definitely strong times, but there are also slower periods to contend with. KMP quickly found a solution for the lean times.

“We needed a project to make sure we could keep the boys employed, so that we aren’t laying anyone off. We used to call it a filler project,” says MacLeod. “We came up with our own line of snow blowers. By no means could we rely solely on that. The product is in place to cover the cost of the guys and material we use.”

Initially, KMP was making roughly 12 to 20 snow blowers per year. Today, the company is making roughly 100. With dealers in Nova Scotia and New Brunswick, their snowblowing project turned into a profitable division. But MacLeod insists, their primary industry is still commercial industrial.

Most recently, KMP added a shot blast booth and paint blast booths, in order to blast and paint the snowblowers in house. However, McLeod explains that this also helps the local customers that require these services.

“Every time we expand, we sit here and say, “We are still too small.” There is always room to expand. And if we continue to grow the way we are, we will have to put on another section as big as the original,” says McLeod.

KMP currently has 10 employees, with an additional four or five Precision Mechanical employees in at any given time.

Kensington Metal Products prides itself on being the “only manufacturer of snow blowers in Atlantic Canada.”

“We are a small company,” says MacLeod.

Yvon Derasp, KMP’s machinist, has his own work area, so he pretty much sticks to his own jobs, explains MacLeod. “It’s his own spot to take care of and prioritize,” he adds. The company relies on primarily manual machines, purchased used from shops across Canada. However, some of the larger equipment, like its shear and press brake, were bought brand new.

The company makes such a wide range of products, including wood chip boilers, potato de-stoners, paper filters, custom work and it spans over a wide range of industries.

“We don’t turn anyone away,” says MacLeod. “We have many different people coming into the office with an idea, and we say there is absolutely nothing we can’t build or source out. We are always up for any challenge. It’s never a dull day; there is always something new that comes in.”

Not only that, but the company boasts one of the largest stocks of stainless on the island, primarily because of its work with Cavendish Farms, explains MacLeod. KMP is able to support local businesses when they are stuck and require stainless. Having a large onsite stock makes it easier for the workers to get jobs done quickly and efficiently.

The company prides itself on keeping everything local. When it comes to cutting the material, KMP could not justify purchasing its own laser cutter, instead they contract out the cutting to a company in Montague, PEI, an hour and 15 minutes away. They used to get their work done in Sackville, New Brunswick, but bringing it back on the island has always been a priority, and when the opportunity came up, MacLeod jumped on it.

It’s all about supporting the local industry for Kensington Metal Products.

Yvon Derasp, KMP’s machinist, has his own work area in the large shop.