A rich history. The Bag Company began operating in 1935 when three "Island" entrepreneurs, Leslie F. Simmons, Lorne H. MacFarlane and Silas H. MacFarlane saw an opportunity to meet the packaging requirements of Prince Edward Island’s growing potato industry and began manufacturing jute potato bags. The company was incorporated in 1936 as the Prince Edward Island Bag Company Limited, and is still owned by the descendants of its founders. In addition to jute or burlap bags, products manufactured or sold include mesh bags for cabbage, onions and shellfish; woven polypropylene bags for feed and fish products, paper and polyethylene produce bags and other packaging related products. Our customers. The majority of the companies packaging products are sold to customers on P.E.I and in Atlantic Canada, but products are shipped to customers in Newfoundland, Ontario, Manitoba, Saskatchewan, British Columbia, Maine and New Jersey. Our customer base is diverse, from large international corporations to individuals needing a few bags to store garden produce. The majority of customers are produce dealers who operate sophisticated packaging warehouses and ship large volumes of potatoes and other produce to markets in Ontario and the U.S. Customers also include exporters of fish products, shellfish, animal feeds and products such as sugar and flour. Production. The material used to make the jute bag is imported from India and Bangladesh. The cloth is purchased in bales containing 2000 yard of material. This material arrives at Halifax in containers then delivered to Summerside by ground transport. In the 1930s and early 40s the bales were delivered by rail and unloaded from the rail cars with hand carts; since a bale weighs up to 1300 lbs., this was challenging job. When material is required, bales are taken to the production area, opened and prepared for production by converting the numerous bolts of cloth in each bale into a continuous roll of material. This roll of material, 2000 yards of cloth, is then cut to the required bag width and printed with a customer design. Printed cut sheets are sewn along the side and bottom. (A jute bag is normally sewn with the printing inside the bag and turned right side out after sewing to increase the strength of the sewn seam.) After the bags are sewn they are turned and baled for shipment. In addition to textile bags the company has been supplying paper bags to the potato industry since the late 50s. These bags were originally purchased in Ontario and after 1965 from a plant in Fredericton N.B. In 1994 the company purchased paper bag manufacturing equipment and began manufacturing paper bags for potatoes, sugar and other products at its new facility in Bedeque PEI. Paper is purchased from various paper mills in 50" diameter rolls that weigh up to 2000 kg each. The paper is printed with customer designs then taken to a bag-making machine and converted into two or three ply SOS style bags. The company has three bag making units, a #5, #7, #10 weber. Each of these machines makes a different size range of bags; the #5 is used for sugar bags, the #7 weber makes 10 & 20 lb. potato bags and the #10 weber makes 50 lb. bags. In addition to packaging made on PEI, the company sells a wide range of closing materials (sewing thread, wire ties, poly wire, hamer wire, wire ties Kwik Loc closures) polyethylene bags, stretch film, imported mesh and leno woven bags.