A History of Elmsdale, Elmsdale West, and Brockton, Prince Edward Island

John Griffin Coll. ‘ John Griffin Coll.

W.P. Griffin Inc. warehouses in 1971 (1). The small building by the barn in the background is the former Basil MacNeill warehouse. The W.P. Griffin Inc. warehouses in 1998 (r), with three of Spud Limited’s storage warehouses

W.P. Griffin has always purchased potatoes from other growers and marketed them under the company’s labels — Griffin Brand, Bud the Spud, and Tall Pines. In addi— tion, Griffin’s is the sole potato packer in Canada. registered to use the Dole brand. The company packs and ships between 20 million and 30 million pounds of table, processing, and seed potatoes annually. Since the late 19608 Sobey’s Inc. has been

the company’s largest customer along with other customers in Toronto, Montreal and Boston.

Abreast of industrial trends, in 1988 the company undertook a major expansion at the Elmsdale plant to facilitate washing table potatoes. The trend toward washed potatoes was just in its infancy, which 1n the years that followed proved W. P. Griffin to be among the industry’s trendsetters. Also 1n 1988 Griffin’ 3 began sizing potatoes for uniformity and packing them 1n cardboard boxes for restaurants.

“In 1996 we did another upgrade,” explains John, “the company purchased compu- terized equipment so that the grading, sizing and packaging operations would run more efficiently.” Continuing 1n their pursuit to improve, in 2000 Griffin’s upgraded the bagging operation to facilitate five- p—ound plastic bags to again keep pace with

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