🔒Lewiston’s Maine Bucket barrels into new markets

After 20 years of making decorative wooden buckets, barrels and store displays, you'd think Mike Morin would have seen and done everything possible with a barrel. Not so, says the president and owner of Maine Bucket Co. in Lewiston.

“We're always figuring out how to do something we haven't done in the past,” says Morin, who bought the company when its previous owners retired in 2011.

One example he pointed to during a recent factory tour with Mainebiz is a promotional casket-shaped shelf system that Maine Bucket made for a rum company. Stacks of barrels smelling of pine or northern white cedar line the 25,000-square-foot manufacturing floor, along with buckets, half barrels, barrels with a display shelf in their middle, crates, garden planters and assorted other custom wood products sporting many famous brands of retailers that sell lemonade, outdoor clothing, baked beans, rum, beer and other spirits. In addition to those specialty orders, Morin says the company keeps 60 stock items that can be customized with burned-in logos or stains. The company also has 45,000 square feet of storage space. That and the manufacturing space are adequate for now, Morin says.

The diversity speaks to the resilience of the company, which weathered the recent recession and low-priced competition with Chinese wood products by trimming costs, beefing up its Web presence and diversifying beyond its traditional lawn and garden business — which is both seasonal and easy prey to bad weather and economic conditions — and into wine and spirits, among other retail industries.

John and June Stauffer of Auburn founded the company in 1982, according to the Sun Journal, and turned it into one of two nationwide makers of replication Colonial wooden buckets, used as planters, decorative pieces or promotional items for corporations. In 1986, the Stauffers sold the company to Douglas and Susan Boyd, who in turn sold it to Morin in 2011 upon their retirement.

“I initially trimmed our number of employees by four people. It was survival mode,” says Morin. “We decreased every expense and our overhead. This allowed us to transition from no profit into a small profit. We're now seeing a recovery and a steady rise [in sales].” He looked for waste and for expenses that could be cut, including nonproductive advertising and trade exhibitions, to cut costs.

Morin says sales are back to pre-recession levels, and the four positions have been added back. The company has 21 full-time staff and four to six temporary workers, and plans to add two administrative people over the next year.

He expects sales to rise 25% this year to $2.75 million, and to increase another 10% next year. “The overall consensus is there seems to be an increase in consumer confidence, so I hope we'll see more growth,” he says.

The company also made a concerted effort to use search engine optimization techniques to drive more traffic to its website, which it improved by adding more photos of the products it sells. The idea is to drive people to the website, and then have them call to place their custom orders.

“The Internet is about being found rather than actual sales,” says Morin. “People see what is on website, then email or make a phone call.”

A marketing person spearheaded the work, focusing in areas where there is an uptick in sales.

“She identifies the moving parts or the better profit margins in those sectors,” says Morin. “We're making sure people are able to find us, so we're doing website optimization and a lot of analytics.”

Overseas competition

Like others in the wood products business, Maine Bucket faces competition from low-priced products from China. Morin says at least monthly a potential customer will price out large orders with him as well as a Chinese manufacturer.

“The wood industry has seen heavy overseas [competition] through the years,” he says. “We try to make up for it in fast turnaround times and service. Our lead times are usually where we can become [the preferred choice], because we can do it

within a month, which is quicker than their [China's] shipping time.”

While there once were a lot of barrel makers around the country, competition in the decorative barrel space has decreased over the years both from competition and consumer preferences. Maine has another decorative barrel company, Bradbury Barrel Co. of Bridgewater. Potato barrels are native to Aroostook County, where cedar barrels have been used since the 1800s during the harvest, storage and sale of the vegetable. Morin notes that the oak wine barrel business is very different from the decorative one in that the barrels are watertight, unlike Maine Bucket's, and hold liquids. That market, which he calls the authentic barrel business, is much larger than the one for decorative barrels.

Expanding markets

When Morin took over the company, it still focused heavily on lawn and garden products including planters, trellises, planter tubs, benches and other items. One problem is that a hot item one spring may not be popular within a couple years, and Maine Bucket has had to keep devising new products to sell.

Another issue is that the lawn and garden products industry is seasonal and relies heavily on a healthy economy and good weather.

“It's a roller coaster industry,” Morin says. “So we've shifted away from lawn and garden to fill in the seasonal gaps.”

Other industries, such as those with promotions and point-of-purchase displays, provide a more steady income flow. Nonetheless, lawn and garden still represents about 25% of Maine Bucket's sales.

The buckets, which are sold to specific customers, through wholesale and even on websites like Amazon.com, also can be used for dry goods storage such as grains or pet food, as well as serving as novelty containers for nails, candy and other goods. They typically have logos or finishes on them rather than being sold as unfinished goods. With store display custom logos and finishing, the barrels can cost $30-$150 per display.

Traditional craftsmanship

Maine Bucket sources its white pine in Maine. Most of its northern white cedar comes from the state as well, though some also is sourced from eastern Canada. The company makes some of the staves (slats) for the barrels and buys some from a vendor outside of Maine.

Each barrel takes the coopers 10 to 30 minutes to build. They place curved bands made of red oak around the barrels, though Morin says a recent trend is to use metal bands, which are considered more authentic.

“It's labor intensive,” he says.

Most sales are in the United States, so to date there hasn't been demand for the certified sustainable wood that is popular in Europe. He says he sells thousands of barrels a year, in addition to the other products Maine Bucket makes. The bucket business, comprised of smaller containers than the floor-standing barrels, is now only a small part of sales.

“The cost of a handcrafted bucket exceeds that of overseas [manufacturers], so it's a novelty for us now,” he says.

Morin began working at Maine Bucket just after high school, and was there 18 years when he approached the previous owners in 2011 to buy a small piece of the business, but ended up with the entire company. He had started as a floor-level employee and progressed to supervisory and management positions. Before he bought the company, he was a factory engineer.

“The Boyds were retiring, so it was good timing for both of us,” says Morin. He declines to give a price for the deal, explaining that it was an unconventional owner-financed sale. He paid the Boyds market value for inventory as he sold it. That gave him essentially some cash float until he sold the inventory, and when he did the Boyds got top dollar for it. He has sold all of the inventory, and now is seeking financing to buy the factory and office land and buildings.

In the meantime, Morin is focused on making a lot of custom products to separate Maine Bucket from the competition.

“Going forward, our general strategy is providing good customer service, which is a must, and acceptable lead times,” he says. “And we must be flexible.”