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April 1, 2024
ANTIGO – From packaging solutions and equipment manufacturing to fencing, fabrics and pet products – Volm Companies, Inc. has staked its claim in the packaging industry for decades.
The efforts of the Antigo-headquartered company were recently recognized by the Wisconsin Manufacturers & Commerce (WMC) – naming it Manufacturer of the Year (MOTY) in the large category.
Volm received the award at the 35th Annual Wisconsin MOTY Awards event held earlier this year.
With 9,200 manufacturing companies calling Wisconsin home, WMC President and CEO Kurt R. Bauer said acknowledging the work they do is important.
“Wisconsin’s best superpower is our manufacturing industry,” he said. “We appreciate the opportunity both to highlight manufacturing as a whole and to showcase the best of our state’s workforce. We’re proud of Wisconsin’s manufacturing heritage and the notoriety this industry has brought to our state, and are confident it is companies like these that will continue to drive Wisconsin forward.”
Building on the past
The international packaging and equipment solutions provider got its start in the Village of Bryant in 1954 when Gerald Volm came up with the idea to drive to Chicago to purchase burlap bags to bring back to the family’s small general store in Antigo and sell to local farmers.
A lot has changed in the last seven decades – including a relocation to the City of Antigo – and though Volm has moved beyond supplying just bags, Michael Hunter, chief operating officer and Gerald Volm’s grandson, said it is still involved with potato packaging.
This, Hunter said, includes everything that produce packing sheds need to package the products themselves – from film and mesh roll stock to robotic-palletizing equipment.
“We are a one-stop source for companies’ packaging needs,” he said. “If we don’t make it, we will source it for you.”
Steady growth, innovation
Volm Companies, Hunter said, employs 550, including 263 in Antigo.
In addition, he said the company has distribution facilities in Wisconsin, Colorado, California, Idaho, Washington and near Toronto, Canada – as well as a manufacturing facility in Idaho and a Canadian plant that produces robotic palletizing and conveyors.
Hunter said Volm also has a sister company – Yellowstone Plastics in Idaho Falls, Idaho – that prints and converts polyethylene packaging.
Now in its third generation of family ownership, Hunter said it was the second generation that aggressively grew the company’s plastic mesh bag business through joint operation agreements (JOAs).
“Our JOAs moved our business beyond Wisconsin,” he said. “We first connected with an Austrian company and later a Danish company on automatic bagging machines.”
Besides potatoes, Hunter said the company provides packaging for onions, citrus fruits and some apples, along with frozen fish, fruit and meatballs.
Volm, he said, is also in the non-food space making and distributing fencing, fabrics and erosion control products – top clients include Green Giant and Sunkist in the food industry and Menard’s and Fleet Farm on products for the outdoors.
“A big success for Volm Companies was coming up with the first mesh bag with a readable UPC – that set us apart,” he said.
Innovation – such as the development of that readable UPC – Hunter said plays an essential role in what Volm Companies does every day.
“We’re always looking at our products and thinking how can we make this cost less or make it more recyclable?” he said.
Part of that innovation, Hunter said, includes the lean journey the company embarked on more than a year ago through the guidance of a consultant.
“This journey is making us more efficient,” he said. “We are also more flexible to do what our customers want. It’s been fun to be a part of.”
Sustainability, Hunter said, is another key business initiative.
As a complete design, equipment and consumables supplier, Hunter said Volm Companies has the unique opportunity to provide solutions to help reduce landfill waste and meet the expectations of more environmentally conscious consumers.
“We’re actively committed to environmental sustainability and striving to understand and reduce our environmental footprint while partnering with our customers in their efforts to do the same,” he said. “We try our best to make as many bags as possible that are recyclable or made from recyclable plastic.”
Though there are a lot of concerns about plastic pollution, Hunter said plastic revolutionized the food industry, helping to keep food fresher and eliminating food waste.
He said Volm Companies offers a full line of sustainable products, including several with biobased content and Ultratech mesh, the company’s proprietary produce packaging alternative.
Looking back over the company’s 70 years in business, Hunter said the company changed significantly, but his grandfather’s values of providing high-quality solutions to customers with personalized customer service have always been embedded within the company.
“I was fortunate to work a couple of years with my grandfather,” he said. “He would come into the office in the morning and then we would go to lunch, and I would take him home. He was the humblest person I knew. He had strong values he passed on down to the future generations.”
The recognition
Hunter said he credits the company’s combination of strong values and focus on being a one-stop source for its customers for the MOTY recognition – an honor he said is “almost surreal.”
“There are so many great companies in Wisconsin – it was humbling (to win),” he said. “To us, being named a finalist was a big deal, but to then go on and win, we were excited for our employees because it shows off all of their hard work.”
