AMHERST – A Cumberland County company has been named one of Canada’s best managed companies.
Oxford Frozen Foods and the Oxford Food Group of Companies – including Hillaton Foods, Peninsula Foods, Bragg Lumber, Maine Wild and Cherryfield Foods – was one of 50 companies recognized on Tuesday.
“It’s a reflection on the team we have here. All the people who work for Oxford Foods and the Oxford Food Group share in the credit for this and we all take great pride in being recognized,” company co-CEO David Hoffman told the Amherst Daily News.
Hoffman said the honour will be food for the company from a marketing perspective and provides a good image of the company when it is traveling overseas to sell wild blueberries.
“When people come to the facility they expect to see a well run company and they do. We have tried to live up to that reputation,” Hoffman said.
Oxford Frozen Foods prides itself on always looking for a better way of doing things, of encouraging and driving innovation and of being efficient and productive while ensuring the organization continually improves its leadership quality.
Hoffman said the company has been very active in trying to grow the wild blueberry industry and most see the company as being an industry leader. The industry, he said, is very competitive and it’s important to keep looking at innovation, change and doing things better.
Oxford Frozen Foods exports the vast majority of its wild blueberry products to 29 countries including Europe, Japan, China, the United States, Korea and Russia.
From 1968, when the company was small with a vision to make wild blueberries the natural pick of consumers around the world, it has grown to have eight manufacturing facilities and two large farming operations within Atlantic Canada and the United States.
It is one of North America’s largest producers of premium, frozen carrots and one of Canada’s largest manufacturers of battered appetizers.
Established in 1993, Canada’s Best Managed Companies is the country’s leading business awards program, recognizing excellence in Canadian-owned and managed companies with revenues over $10 milion.
The program recognizes overall business performance and sustained growth, the efforts of the entire organization and measures more than financial performance.
An independent panel of judges selects the 50 award winners.
Twitter: @ADNdarrell
