Tariffs and trade impacts with the U.S. were top of mind during a Surrey Industry Tour that brought three busloads of people to 13 sites in the city.
The annual tour, organized by Surrey Board of Trade and merger partner South Surrey & White Rock Chamber of Commerce, involved a few dozen participants Friday, April 23.
Bus Two's first stop was Highland Foundry, which has operated in Surrey since the 1970s and is now downsizing on the company's nine-acre site in Port Kells.
"B.C. used to have 30 foundries in the province, and there's only four left, and offshoring is primarily the reason for that," said general manager Warren Geraghty.
"Eighty per cent of what we make goes to the U.S., and of course tariffs are having a severe impact on what we do. So we've been scaling back, we've gone from 130 employees to 50 employees at the moment."
One large building on the lot is being cleared out for leasing.
"We're consolidating to reduce our overhead and make ourselves more competitive," Geraghty added. "That started in November last year, and head office says it wants that done by August. It's a very, very busy time for us, trying to get that done while we keep production running. It's not easy to do, and safety is top of our mind."
Also located in Port Kells is Beedie's new One Nine Two Business Centre, two industrial buildings totalling nearly 94,000 square feet on 192 Street.
In Newton, the Gupta family-owned City Wide Produce, established in 2010, will soon move to a new, larger building near Highway 10 and 192 Street, in partnership with Orion Construction.
"Because we have one dock, it's really packed in here," said Gopal Gupta, who runs the company with wife Fazleen.
"Right now this facility is 4,200 square feet and holds about 100 pallets, or 120, depending on how tight you want to get. Our new facility is 27,000 square feet. We are looking to lease some of it, but we'll have 17,000 for ourselves, and that can hold around a thousand pallets. It's big growth."
City Wide sells onions, potatoes and other produce to stores and restaurants in the region, and is trying to navigate the U.S. tariff situation like everyone else in B.C.
"What we found early on was that our customers were demanding not U.S. products, so local, which is a bit more limited," Gupta said. "We have found that there were certain markets that accepted that better, and other markets that were more price-driven. One customers on the Island, they were demanding Mexican product. We found that that lasted about two months…. Mexican product is not usually more expensive than California or U.S. product, but this time it flipped, and that was I felt short-lived. I'm not entirely sure what's gonna happen."
A final stop for Bus Two was WearTech Labs, a SFU-backed facility for the research and development of wearable technologies including exoskeletons, prosthetics, earphones, shoes, technical clothing and more, at the City Centre 2 tower near Surrey Memorial Hospital.
Surrey tour stops for the other two buses were Cloverdale Paint, Mountain Equipment Company (MEC), Solid Rock Steel Fabricating, 130 Street/Anvil Business Park, Altro Labels, Cancorr, One95 Business Park, Total Box Management Solutions and The Quad, with commentary from Lee & Associates commercial real estate services.
During lunch at Civic Hotel, Andrew Wynn-Williams, B.C. division vice-president of Canadian Manufacturers and Exporters Association, talked about Surrey as a manufacturing leader and the impact of U.S. tariffs.
"Are you all kind of feeling pretty inspired after your tour today?" he asked. "OK, well I'm here to depress you."
Wynn-Williams went on to document recent declines in B.C.'s manufacturing industry amid tariff threats and warnings of a recession, with details from Blueprint to Strengthen Canadian Manufacturing, released April 16.
