There’s plans to expand Ebel Quarry in Wiarton after it was bought out by Polycor Inc.
Co-Chief Operating Officer Matt Howard says they purchased Ebel Quarry Feb. 1 after Ebel sought an ownership transition.
A Quebec City based company, Polycor is an international natural stone quarrier and will be creating 15 to 30 more jobs at the site.
“We have been very interested in this region for a while, so it was a great opportunity for us,” says Howard. “We were looking to have physical local presence and they have a great quarry resource and a great workforce. The company has been very well run over the years and so that was very attractive for us to be able to establish a physical presence here in Ontario.”
Howard says moving forward, they are looking to grow the business by increasing output and the efficiency of operations, resulting in a plan to grow the workforce over the next few years.
“We expect we will invest over $1 million within the next year in updating and extending the equipment set, and we think that will bring at least 50 per cent more to the workforce,” says Howard.
Howard adds they are starting to conduct evaluations, and are already looking at ways to invest in the quarry by bringing machinery.
“Most natural stone used for building are regional, they tend to distribute around where they are sourced from, which is a great environmental situation. One of the things we are focused on is the carbon footprint of what we do as a building material supplier versus concrete,” says Howard. “One of the things we have as a larger company, is a fairly large sales force that covers the full United States and Europe, and with that in place, we drive demand which both helps us grow the business for ourselves, but will also grow the demand for the stone from the peninsula.”
Howard adds they also plan to work with local municipalities who would require local stone for development proposes, but have not engaged that possibility as of yet.
Howard says they are happy to bring the Ebel Quarry into Polycor.
