Family Business Will Celebrate 10th Anniversary In New Cumberland Plant
Architect’s rendition of the under construction new location of Tree Island Yogurt’s building in Cumberland
COMOX VALLEY – Scott DiGuistini was looking for a location for a new plant for Tree Island Yogurt, when he came upon something even better.
A scarcity of industrial land in the Comox Valley led him to Cumberland, where, after discussions with Hancock Forest Management, DiGuistini not only found a new home for the family yogurt business in the Bevan Industrial Land in Cumberland, but enough room to build a six-unit industrial subdivision – which is already sold out.
“We’ve transitioned from making yogurt to developing land,” DiGuistini states. “From a Tree Island Yogurt perspective, it’s fantastic to build something like this from scratch. We’re really excited about building what we’re building.”
Tree Island Yogurt is already a Comox Valley success story, having outgrown its Royston location, spurring DiGuistini’s quest for expansion. When it becomes operational by September, 2022, the new 30,000 square foot facility will be home to the company’s 35 employees. It will also mark the firm’s 10th anniversary.
Tree Island Yogurt team members
Tree Island began in 2012, and they use 100 per cent fresh whole BC milk from grass-fed cows to make hand-crafted artisan yogurt in small batches using a traditional, slow-kettle cooking method.
Their www.treeislandyogurt.com website states: “We are committed to building a sustainable future for our children and generations to come. We support local, grass-fed dairy farms with pastures that promote healthy ecosystems, and we are using 50 percent less plastic in our new packaging.”
Products include Greek, fruit and cream-top yogurt in a variety of flavours and sizes. With its own fleet of trucks, Tree Island Yogurt has grown consistently, and now distributes its products all the way to Ontario, with distribution vehicles in Toronto, Calgary, Vancouver and on Vancouver Island.
“We’ve been trapped really in our current site for the past two years, and we’re bursting at the seams,” he notes. “It’s taken awhile to get the subdivision going, as there’s a lot more to it than I first realized, so it takes time.”
DiGuistini knew that there was very little industrial land available in the Comox Valley, so he went cold calling. The land they eventually purchased, between the Comox-Strathcona Regional District landfill, Comox Lake and the Inland Island Highway, was not for sale, but he found out that represented 85 per cent of the available land zoned for industrial development in the valley, which was held by Hancock.
Samples of Tree Island Yogurt product
“They agreed to meet with us, they liked our plan, which aligned well with the Village of Cumberland’s vision of a business area for local trades and light industry to grow,” he recalls. “Their minimum parcel-size was bigger than what made sense for our yogurt plant, so we decided to build a small industrial subdivision and keep one lot for ourselves.”
DiGuistini’s development company, Acciano Development, held discussions with the Village of Cumberland, and they agreed to build four kilometres of water main, which makes other options and future stages possible.
“John Chislett is the architect who designed our building,” he states. “I dragged him out of retirement, and he’s done a beautiful job designing an industrial building that feels like a home.”
This is the latest step for DiGuistini and his wife Merissa, who left Vancouver 12 years ago for the outdoors and smaller community unique to the Comox Valley, and decided to start their family yogurt business. They got the idea after being stranded in France during the volcanic eruption in Iceland.
“We were trapped in Paris, and we were in love with the whole French cultural food experience and eating a lot of yummy French yogurt,” he recalls. “We were looking for a way to make a living on the Island, and I was actually there interviewing for a job in France, and doing scientific research.”
Returning to Canada, he discovered the dairy industry is quite different, due to the national supply-management system. While doing his due diligence, he realized there was space within the dairy industry to be innovative, and, fresh with their love for French yogurt, started their own operation.
“We’re still real promoters of whole foods, traditional methodologies and the idea of crafted food,” he states.
Mark MacDonald is President of Communication Ink Media & Public Relations Ltd. and writes for the Business Examiner. He can be reached at mark@communicationink.ca
