Mainebiz

V O L . X X I X N O. X X I V M I D C O A S T / D OW N E A S T F O C U S Over the generations, the family has been involved in the lumber industry, fur trading, blueberry farming and automobile sales and service. Growing up here, David Whitney recalls discover- ing the smell of balsam at age 8 in 1974, wrestling with his cousin Bobby. "Why do you smell like trees?" he recalls asking Bobby. Bobby explained he had been making money collecting "tips" from trees and selling them to Flo's Wreaths in nearby Marshfield. Flo's Wreaths was co-founded and run for 50 years by the late Flora "Flo" Hanscom, who died in 2008. Young David thought collecting tips would be a great way to make money to buy candy. He climbed a spruce tree and picked a baggie full of needles. Flo was amused, and showed David the actual tips — the end portion of balsam fir branches — and the process of snapping them into decorative bunches to wrap with wire around rings to create wreaths. "Flo unknowingly had opened the door to my new world," he says. In 1988, as a college student, Whitney started Whitney Wreath, marketing direct to consumers. In 1991, he secured a contract with Dodgeville, Wisc.-based catalogue company Land's End to market his wreaths. Focusing on the mail-order business, his customer base grew through the decade to include national and state outlets like QVC and Sturbridge Yankee Workshop. He acquired additional holdings, including marine sales and service business, a glass company and real estate. Tipping point In 2008, Freeport-based L.L.Bean contacted Whitney to ask if his company could produce its balsam wreaths. "I said we'd love it," Whitney recalls. "We were on a fairly steep trajectory for volume." At the time, Whitney was leasing nine different loca- tions in Washington County, northern Maine and Nova Scotia, using them for seasonal wreath production. He was also gaining access to pools of seasonal workers. He placed production for the large L.L.Bean order in one of the shops. A year later, the retail giant sub- stantially increased its order, asking Whitney to supply 70% of its overall balsam business. Whitney agreed. But the sizeable contract meant creating efficiencies and consolidating facilities. So he invested more than $4 million to build the 75,000-square-foot Whitneyville facility, on land he owned, opening in 2010. e project was financed through Machias Savings Bank with a USDA Rural Development guaranteed loan. e two-story building — with 23 overhead doors, most with loading docks — was designed specifically for efficiency in the wreath business. "But the same efficiency the wreath business needs is very similar to what other manufacturers need, and that is straight-line flow of goods with particular emphasis on high-volume shipping," he says. Stretching the season But there was a nagging question. "In particular, Whitney Wreath has long been challenged with the question of how to utilize the facilities, management, labor and skills of Whitney Wreath outside of the six weeks of busy wreath season," Whitney says. From that was born the concept of Downeast Packaging Solutions, which would make use of systems and talent already in place. It also had the capacity to accommodate the needs of other businesses. e first client was the Rockport-based Rope Co., a rope mat and basket maker owned by Logan and Hannah Rackliff. Connecting through a business asso- ciation six years ago, Downeast Packaging took on the company's manufacturing. It receives and stores incom- ing rope, tracks demand for the company's SKUs, and manufactures and ships the products. Downeast Packaging developed regular produc- tion schedules for the Rope Co., and is responsible for keeping its client's 100 SKUs properly populated with inventory. In effect, the firm manages its client's production, Whitney says. Wyman's of Maine, which was founded in Milbridge and will be 150 years old in 2024, approached Downeast Packaging in 2020 about packaging blue- berry juice to market direct to the consumer. "Wyman's was looking into direct-to-consumer fulfillment products," says Patrick Carroll, Wyman's director of marketing. "We had looked at doing it ourselves. It was manpower and knowledge that we just didn't have in-house." Carroll was impressed by the sophistication of Downeast Packaging's operation. "He had a lot of buying power with UPS and helped us out with cost-effective solutions to ship products," he says. at contract grew to include juice, powder, dried wild blueberries and ancillary products like T-shirts — everything except frozen blueberries — and has increased distribution at least three-fold in two years. » C O N T I N U E D F RO M P R E V I O U S PA G E O C T O B E R 1 6 , 2 0 2 3 16 Kelsey Stevens burns a small portion of a rope mat to secure the rope ends at Downeast Packaging Solutions. P H O T O / F R E D F I E L D

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