Perdue's Sultan of Plastic Wrap

by Joanne Paulson of the Star Phoenix

The fastest-growing company in the Prairie provinces isn't in Calgary, Edmonton, or even Saskatoon. It is located in Perdue, 60 kilometres west of Saskatoon.

Jim Scharf Holdings Ltd. is the only Saskatchewan company to make Profit magazine's list of 100 fastest growing companies.

Rated 15th, Scharf is pulling rank on electronics companies, investment houses, national travel companies, and even Sprint Canada.

It's Scharf's second year on the list, but the company has jumped 31 positions from 46th place last year. Since 1990, Scharf Holdings' revenues have gone up from about $114,000 in 1990 to 2.8 million last year.

Entrepreneur Jim Scharf manufactures the E-ZEE WRAP 1000 dispenser and bulk plastic wrap with 10 to 15 staff, depending on the time of year.

The location is not stopping him from actively pursuing global markets. Since last September he has spent more than $2.5 million on American advertising, and is aggressively going for a deal in Asia. His latest coup is landing dealer Ace Hardware, the 5,000- store U.S. chain, on Wednesday.

The success of Scharf's E-ZEE WRAP dispenser can be best illustrated by a problem one of his American dealers experienced after Scharf started using the dealer's name on CNN ads.

The dealer, a major American chain, was having problems storing enough dispensers and working out export payments. It finally asked Scharf to remove its name from the ad, saying too many customers were asking for the product.

"CNN never heard of that in it life" said Scharf, who obliged by removing the dealer tag.

Scharf has a simple explanation for such successes. "Plastic wrap is used around the world, and we've solved the problem of dispensing it," he said.

Jim Scharf Holdings is in its 10th year of manufacturing E-ZEEWRAP®. In 1986, Scharf took his metal dispenser prototype to the Saskatchewan Research Council for further design help. Today, the plastic product is injection-molded in Swift Current, then assembled, packaged and marketed from Perdue. Scharf has built two expansions in the last year to keep up the demand.

E-ZEEWRAP® apparently doesn't keep him busy enough. Scharf also farms 42 quarter sections-he finished seeding Wednesday night-and has expanded his marketing division to include other people's products.

He has already sold 70,000 lettuce knives for a Humboldt farmer, and is in the process of bringing an odor absorber and another knife that doesn't scratch Teflon baking pans to market.

Scharf says he's honored to have made the Profit 100 list. "It show we're doing something right....and it does help us with our exporting," he said. "But I've been so busy farming here, it hasn't really sunk in yet."

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