Steuart Contract Packaging growing

The word “opportunity” can be used many different ways, but for Ben Steuart of Mabel, Minn., it’s a word that he and his company, Steuart Contract Packaging, have taken on with heart!

Steuart, who took over the old Artesian Water building east of LeRoy, has been expanding and expanding fast! Started in 2019 by Ben and his wife, Sarah, the company has grown in leaps and bounds, currently adding new equipment to help with production at the LeRoy operation.

The business is a little “unique” in that their mission is: “To glorify God and establish a transformation workplace by creating innovative, accountable and profitable solutions.”

“For me, this business has changed my life,” stated Ben Steuart, who is a born-again Christian after turning his life around about seven years ago. “Before getting this business started, I was into drugs and alcohol and needed a drastic change.  I was saved seven years back when I confronted a business friend of mine. That was when we started our company, encountered a faith conversion and was saved. The person had a four to five year business plan laid out for me, and that was three-and-a-half years ago.”

Ben stated that he grew up in his father’s food production business in Mabel where he gained plenty of exposure to where he his now. He first started his business with a production plant in Mabel, Minn. and approximately two years ago, due to needed space, started leasing the LeRoy building located on Hwy. 56, about four miles out of LeRoy. With the added location they grew from 9,000 square feet to approximately 21,000. Potential growth looks to find the company at 50,000 square feet in the near future. 

“The Covid pandemic was an opportunity for us in bottling hand sanitizer, eventually also working into CBD products which also became very popular at that time,” pointed out Steuart. “For the hand sanitizer we put the first line in the year 2020 and then quickly added another line. We bought a lot of equipment to make that happen, using much of it in Mabel, but then moved it all to LeRoy when we started to rent the building.”

With business you need to react quickly and as needs also change, so do the products.

“Soon after we switched to making Covid Test Kits and then when that bubble burst, we went to nutritional food packets and packaging proteins. We reached over one million pounds of protein in Mabel and with that, we managed to switched over much of everything again––from doing liquid sanitizer, to now doing powered supplements.”

Now their packaging consists of approximately 25-percent liquids and 75-percent powders. 

“Our LeRoy plant is truly our manufacturing arm of the company,” stated Steuart, who continues to purchase equipment and make changes in the plant. “We recently added machinery to do liquid spray supplements and also added a new powder blending system.”

He commented that they purchased some of the equipment from Purdue Pharma, which is a unique blending system––not found easily, and rarely used in this small an operation.

“We’re almost done with the build-out for this machine and now just need production workers, as more machine operators are needed,” said Steuart, who is happy with the growth problem. “Another machine being installed is for stick packs, which are getting more and more popular in the United States. Manufacture companies find the stick packs more profitable with customers still seeing a savings as well. The stick packs cost much less to ship and the packs are easy to use. We can do 80,000 to 100,000 sticks a shift with this new equipment in place, provided it can be boxed that fast.”

The company has seen a nice surge when it comes to employees, currently have 20 full time and 15 part time working as of right now, with more to be hired as the equipment sees more demand. One of those employees is his wife, Sarah, who helps with much of the Mabel facility, and the couple has one daughter, Sloan, who will also grow up in the business, like her Dad. “We also have many life-long friends who have come to work for us, and continue to add on with rural area workers, who seem to be doing a great job and liking what they do.”

The “positive” of working at the company are many innovative things happening. They are constantly getting in new “used” equipment, and often try to find positive things happening, plus want to continue to improve on those positives in making things more productive.

“We are constantly doing resourceful things, such as doing YouTube® videos at both plants that we post each week,” said Steuart. “It will show sometimes the smallest to the largest improvements, allowing every employee to contribute with ideas. We encourage every employee to come up with an idea and it truly empowers every person to save a few seconds each day.”

They also have created a nice workspace for the employees when they take breaks and just eat lunch. The employees do have longer days, starting work at 6:30 a.m. and working to 4 p.m. five days a week, but with the breaks and constantly trying to improve on production, the days seem to pass by in a flash.

“This is one of the best places I’ve ever worked for,” said Diane Nolt, who works on one of the lines at the LeRoy operation. “We’re treated well, and it’s just enjoyable to work here.”

As for the future, Steuart continues to purchase good, used equipment to grow on. He noted that there are many “deals” available as not many buyers are shopping for this type of equipment. Allowing him to get the machinery at lower prices has also helped the company grow much faster than usual.

So when it comes to “opportunity” you could say Steuart Packaging is doing it right! You could say they are “Packing for the Future!”