EXPORT EXCELLENCE

Big Mountain Foods founder Kimberly Chamberland owns and operates the company with her daughter and business partner

HAYLEY WOODIN

What do a plant-based foods producer, a rapid test kit developer and a mass timber manufacturer have in common? The three companies profiled in the pages ahead have not only shown resilience in the face of an unprecedented pandemic – they have found ways to expand, innovate and thrive. Their leadership and export success have earned each of them B.C. Export Awards. They represent the diversity of B.C.’s economy, and the growth opportunities that could define the province’s future export and trade success.

B.C.-based Big Mountain Foods recently moved from a 3,500 square-foot facility into 70,000 square feet of space in Delta to keep pace with demand for plant-based products. “We were busting out of the seams seven days a week, two and a half shifts a day,” owner Kimberly Chamberland tells BIV Magazine.

The global market for plant-based foods is expected to top US$72 billion by 2027, and grow at a compound annual rate of nearly 12%, according to ResearchandMarket.com.

Intolerance for animal proteins, growing urbanization and significant venture investments in animal-free products are fuelling demand, and Big Mountain Foods is gearing up to cater to it.

Chamberland founded the company in 1987. “It wasn’t the company that it is today,” she explains. Back then she would deliver organic brownies, muffins and cookies to trendy little coffee shops throughout Vancouver.

Today, Big Mountain Foods is available in Whole Foods stores across Canada, and is in conversation with the chain’s U.S. counterpart. The award-winning exporter is working through the certifications it needs to sell into larger U.S. retailers, such as Walmart Inc. and Costco Wholesale Corp.

When Chamberland spoke with BIV Magazine, she had just gotten off a call with Costco Tokyo. “It seems like it’s finally paying off – my loyalty, my passion for what we’re doing. Providing good, wholesome, allergen-free, vegan options is finally catching on,” says Chamberland, who runs the company with her daughter, Jasmine Byrne.

She credits companies such as Beyond Meat Inc. for breaking down barriers for plant-based options, and bringing vegan products into the mainstream.

From an export perspective, Big Mountain Foods is looking south. “It’s more practical, economically, for us to ship down the I5 than it is to Quebec. So it was sort of a no brainer for us to open up our horizons and see the bigger picture. Planted-based is exploding everywhere,” says Chamberland, who notes the company’s expansion in the U.S. has been more challenging than expected. “We thought hands down Southern California would embrace what we’re doing, but there’s more and more people coming out with plant-based products. It’s all about marketing, and we’re learning every day.”

There are exciting things in the works for Big Mountain Foods. The company has a corporate team in place and recently hired a new chef. It is also planning to launch an “exciting” new product in the first quarter of 2022. “I’m just smiling from ear to ear. It’s such exciting times,” Chamberland says.

Big Mountain Foods is preparing to add an “exciting” new product to its line of whole, plant-based foods • ASHLEY DRODY PHOTOGRAPHY

BioLytical Laboratories has had a busy year.

During the COVID-19 shutdown, the Richmond-based company moved its operations into a facility twice the size of its former home. Its rapid COVID-19 antibody test has been approved in the European Union and is in active review with the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, and its HIV self-test kit is now the first of its kind approved by Health Canada. The company also built a world-class, in-house antigen lab that will power the development of its tests for years to come. “We thought we had a seven-year growth plan and now we’re fully grown. The seven-year growth plan turned into seven-month growth plan,” says Robert Mackie, CEO and chairman of the award-winning exporter.

BioLytical invested more than a million dollars in equipment for its antigen lab, which incudes a very rare protein machine Mackie says is second to none. It will mean the company can produce its own antigen and finesse its world-leading tests without going back and forth with a third-party.

Previously, BioLytical purchased antigen from San Diego. For its COVID-19 test, it used the National Research Council of Canada’s lab to build antigen. “They even laugh that we’ve purchased the machine that they wanted,” Mackie says. “You can only imagine how easier it is to do it right down the hall, as opposed to doing it in Toronto.”

It is difficult to overstate the significance of BioLytical’s expansion. The lab is unique in Western Canada and one of perhaps a couple in Canada. “Let’s say if or when there is a new virus out there – COVID-22 or whatever happens – we can spring into action way quicker now and we can build antigen right away,” Mackie says.

BioLytical’s new lab will allow the manufacturer to purify its Hepatitis C assay, which Mackie says will be industry leading, and could surpass sales of BioLytical’s flagship HIV assay.

And in its new facility, the company – which produces a range of one-minute tests for infectious diseases – expects to be able to produce up to 60 million products per year by the end of this year.

The company’s move during the COVID-19 lockdown made that possible. “I don’t know how we would have done it if we were in full production and we weren’t shut down,” Mackie says. “Obviously our sales going from record-breaking numbers to zero was no help for my sleep. But I’m really excited for what the future holds, because of how antibody testing, and just testing in general, was put into the forefront through this pandemic.”

As COVID-19 spread around the world, testing for other kinds of diseases came to a standstill. But testing is back, and Mackie tells BIV Magazine that sales of the company’s HIV testing kit have since broken sales records for two consecutive months. “Leaving HIV sales dormant for 12 months when you’re fighting something that you’re making very small ground on – which is the HIV epidemic – you can’t take a year off,” he says. “The market is back, and nobody’s in full swing yet.”

Robert Mackie is chairman and CEO of BioLytical Laboratories • SUBMITTED

ABOVE: BioLytical produces rapid tests for a number of infectious diseases, and announced a COVID-19 antibody test in partnership with Health Canada last year • SUBMITTED

Kalesnikoff is seizing massive mass timber opportunities, thanks to the company’s new state-of-the-art facility • SUBMITTED

Even a global pandemic couldn’t keep the Kalesnikoff family and their multi-service mass timber manufacturing business down.

Over the past year and a half, the company that bears their name has added 65 jobs, supported by more than $5 million in wages. Kalesnikoff’s newly minted, multimillion-dollar mass timber facility also came online at the start of 2020, and has been busy producing products for schools, community housing projects, university residences, commercial buildings and more throughout North America. “2021 is on track to be our best year yet, thanks to our diversification into mass timber and our continued sawmill operations,” says company president and CEO Ken Kalesnikoff. “Throughout the past year we’ve continued to grow, to create jobs, to secure contracts and to reinvest back into our community. It’s been 82 years since my grandfather and his brothers started our family business, so we’ve gotten used to adapting and innovating as times change.”

Kalesnikoff invested $35 million into its new 110,000 squarefoot mass timber facility, construction on which began in 2019. The space, and the company’s sawmill, are located in the Kootenays, between Castlegar and Nelson, B.C. “Our business has always been focused on adding value right here at home. That’s what has carried us through the past 82 years and what will lead us into a bright future,” Kalesnikoff notes.

He adds that he has seen mass timber going up in buildings around the continent. It is a better option, he says, for builders who are increasingly mindful of the carbon emissions associated with construction. “Our expansion into mass timber allows us to add significantly more value to the products we supply,” Kalesnikoff says.

Last year, Kalesnikoff was selected to supply mass timber products for Bayview Elementary in Vancouver, Humber College in Toronto and the University of Victoria. The three school projects are among the first major cross-laminated lumber projects that will be built with Kalesnikoff’s products. “The provincial government recently highlighted the need for those in the industry to focus on value rather than volume,” Kalesnikoff tells BIV Magazine. “There are many smaller independent companies out there that survive by focusing on value over volume, and that should be recognized and celebrated.”