EVOLVE Business and Professional Magazine April 2017 | Page 24

recipe to produce pies
for local tourists. Kermit
quickly struggled to
keep up with demand—
he needed a bigger
kitchen, warehouse,
and storefront. The
historic district of Key
West offered none of
Retail shop in Deland
BUILD
MORE
THAN
MUSCLE.
these things. Space
was at a premium,
ingredients costly to
ship in, and labor prohibitively expensive. Kermit decided he would keep his small
but serviceable storefront in Key West and continue to sell fresh pies, but move
production to another area of the state with the room to add retail at the same
location. A search for a suitable location led the team to Deland.
All of Kermit’s products, except for cookies and a few candies, are made in
the Deland manufacturing facility. There, they make salad dressing, sauces, jellies,
marmalades, and Kermit’s signature Key Lime Pie on a Stick dipped in Belgian
chocolate. There is a sense of pride in the fact that these products are handmade
in the factory kitchen—right down to hand-cutting the lime-flavored dog biscuits.
This location is also the shipping hub. Gel packs and specially-formed Styrofoam
containers guarantee that a pie will arrive fresh and ready-to-serve in 24 hours.
The original 1200 square foot factory has grown to its present 14,000 square feet.
Fifteen people make this production-based specialty business a success. Growth
has been steady for the past ten years. Changes during those years, as well as
anticipated changes, are frequently driven by new regulations from the Food and
Drug Administration, such as changes in product labeling and product content,
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For more
than a
workout.
which affect the entire food industry.
Thompson Pump
and Manufacturing Co., Inc.
Family owned and operated Thompson Pump and Manufacturing Company,
Inc. of Port Orange manufactures, services, and refurbishes water-transferring
pumps. Their survival strategy comes from its diversified offerings—Thompson
builds custom pumping solutions to handle a wide variety of de-watering situations.
“De-watering” may not be a common term but consider the need to remove water
from the many local construction projects and highway expansions, and the recent
flooding aftermath of Hurricane Matthew. Commercial-sized pumps are important
pieces of equipment to drain a work area—not to mention for sewer repairs or sewer
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bypasses. Municipalities often have a pump held “in rent” at the Port Orange facility
so that it is available on an as-needed basis and in case of emergencies. With two
thousand rentals available at any given time, rentals form the majority of Thompson
Pump’s business. Thompson Pump has a total of nineteen sales, rental, and service
For a better us.
centers, a large number of distributors, and a worldwide customer base.
The Port Orange facility is the firm’s only manufacturing plant and the corporate
headquarters. Current factory space measures about 70,000 square feet, but there are
plans to add a much needed 30,000 square feet. in the next two years. The plant not
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