Expand your Business to Buffalo Niagara

Petrolift Inc. is based in Cairo, Egypt and is a leading manufacturer of web slings and lifts for industrial applications in the oil & gas industry. Petrolift has been operating in Cairo since 1999, and holds a number of existing customers in the United States and Canada. The Majority of its customers are based in Houston, Texas and Calgary and Alberta, Canada.

After 15 years of successful business in Cairo, Petrolift wanted to expand its manufacturing operation into the U.S. marketplace under a new subsidiary, TexWeb, Inc.

Universal Logistics is a third generation, family-owned business established in 1949 with 87 employees and five locations across Canada. Over these 70-plus years, Universal have grown and prospered by delivering innovative logistics solutions while still maintaining a family value approach to caring for their clients. Universal’s complete package of logistics services includes international freight, North American trucking, U.S. and Canadian customs brokerage and warehousing/distribution.

In 2009, Universal’s U.S. sales represented only 3-4% of the company’s overall sales, and they worked through a U.S. partner to provide their U.S. brokerage services. However, it was identified that a significant value-added client need would be met by establishing their own U.S. customs brokerage presence. A U.S. office would enable clients with product imports or exports, either to or from the U.S., to receive a single and trusted source for their U.S. customs brokerage, trucking, and distribution requirements. The solution was to take advantage of one of the two options available at the time: a ground level, start-up operation or an acquisition of a U.S. company. In a stroke of good luck and perfect timing, their existing U.S. partner in Buffalo proposed to sell their company and this created the optimum opportunity to make a fast track, strategic acquisition of an established U.S. customs broker.

Sierra Biological is an early-stage agri-business company that manufactures microscopic nematodes and other biological organisms used by the commercial greenhouse industry and other agricultural applications. Sierra’s products offer growers a highly effective and economical alternative to using pesticides in their growing process.

The company was originally founded in the Sierra Mountains of Northern California. However, the company’s primary upstream and downstream supply chains were both located on the U.S. East Coast and in Southern Ontario, Canada, prompting them to consider a relocation.

In addition to proximity, costs and workforce, Sierra needed to find a building that met its needs and a welcoming community.

TROVE Predictive Data Science was spun out of not-for-profit CUBRC, a leading Research, Development, Testing and Systems Integration company located in the Buffalo Niagara region, which had developed a novel technology in the field of data fusion. Today, many companies, such as public utilities and telecommunications companies, have massive amounts of data that they collect in their normal business. TROVE Predictive Data Science was formed utilizing this technology to deliver analytical solutions and data-driven insights to its customers. Thier multi-source data fusion technology combines internal customer data with over 2,000 attributes of external third-party data.

Karl Kolbe was born and raised in the Buffalo Niagara region. However, for the last seven years he has been brewing beer in Sacramento, California. Though craft beers captured his palate, Buffalo Niagara always had his heart.

When he decided he wanted to open his own brewery, he knew the City of Buffalo was the place. He and some partners went in on the business together, and thus, Pressure Drop Brewing was born. They will be brewing around eight beers at a time from 40 recipes, alternating them based on season. Their IPA-heavy beer will be ready in October.

GoGoPak is an Oakville, ON family owned company specializing in the sale of retail packaging and promotional products. The company has $1-2M in annual sales with services including custom printing solutions on packaging products such as bags, boxes, tissue paper, ribbon, labels, and string tags. In 2018, they were looking to the U.S. for expansion for various reasons. The high employee and power costs in Canada, their high percentage of U.S. sales and raw materials, bridge issues and delays for importing U.S. raw materials and sending orders to U.S. customers were all factors in their consideration of a U.S. facility. GoGoPak was also looking to bring the outsourced manufacturing for both their Canadian and U.S. orders back in house for better control over the product quality.