From Realtà Mapei n° 27 - 2020-04-24
Mapei thrives in canada at age 40
As MAPEI Inc. turns 40 in 2018, it is satisfying to recognize all the things that this subsidiary has accomplished. After all, Canada was the first country outside of Italy where MAPEI established production facilities and where the company began its internationalization plans. MAPEI entered the Canadian market in 1976 by supplying products for the installation of the Olympic tracks for the Montreal Olympics. MAPEI then incorporated MAPEI Inc. in Canada and opened its first plant in 1978 in an industrial area of Laval (Montreal), where the company began producing adhesives for tile and resilient flooring. From these small beginnings with one chemist and two qualitycontrol specialists, MAPEI Inc. began to research, develop and produce ever more innovative products for the Canadian market and the rest of North America. Today that original plant has reached 147,000 square feet (13,657 m2 ) in size and houses two polymer reactors as well as production facilities, corporate offices, research and development labs, and a Technical Services Department beyond compare in the industry.
MAPEI Inc. began to spread westward across Canada at the end of the 1980s. In 1989, they also opened a manufacturing plant in New Westminster, British Columbia to serve the Western Canada market, which was later relocated to Delta, British Columbia. In 2001, MAPEI acquired a smaller manufacturer in Brampton, Ontario, and began producing powdered products for that growing market. In recent years, MAPEI Inc. has added a Regional Distribution Center in Calgary, Alberta, to better accommodate the Prairie Provinces. In the mid-1990s MAPEI Inc. purchased a redispersible powder manufacturing plant in Maskinongé, Quebec, in a novel move to provide vital raw materials for its plants across the Americas (the first U.S. plant had been added in 1983). Today, MAPEI Inc. is as well known in Canada for the high quality and variety of its products as for the professionalism of its sales and technical teams. In addition, it has enjoyed participation in such high-profile projects as The Royal Ontario Museum, The Core in Calgary, the Champlain Bridge and Jacques Cartier Bridge in Montreal, the Shangri-La Hotel and Towers in Toronto, The Exchange Building in Vancouver, the Sparkling Hill Resort in British Columbia, the Pierre Elliott Trudeau International Airport in Montreal, and the Pearson International Airport in Toronto.