Coast of Maine products tap into growing compost demand

To the home gardener interested in sustainable and organic garden care, national marketing trends and sales figures in the garden and lawn care industry might not be quite as compelling as a bucket of dark crumbly compost with a rich earthy smell. But take them to the 26‑acre site in Marion Township where Coast of Maine Organic Products creates its seven different blends of gardening compost and soils, four mulches and two fertilizers, and they may just be willing to listen as they stand surrounded by winnowed rows and large piles of compost blends.
Coast of Maine has been supplying gardeners with organic compost, gardening soil blends and fertilizers for the past 17 years, blending ingredients from organic cow manure, bark, peat moss, wild blueberry harvest winnowing leavings, lobster and crab shells, all supplied by regional producers. Founder Carlos Quijano, a former banking executive, smiles when he says that while he's been conservative in growing the company, it has gone from one part‑time employee in 1996 to 11 full‑time, eight seasonal and numerous independent contractors ranging from truckers to graphic designers. The Marion site is the composting headquarters, with trucks rumbling in with supplies and rumbling out with pallets of bagged products; Portland is the administrative base. "We have a very strong balance sheet," despite the recession, he notes.
Quijano's business strategy is right in line with industry standards, good news for organic gardening enthusiasts, but also for the Washington County economy and the industries that supply the compost ingredients. Growth in organic gardening and lawn care is on the rise, with the National Gardening Association (NGA) market research branch reporting that between 2008 and 2009 the trend jumped from the 10% increase seen the year before to a 19% increase. In the same year almost three percent of the $30 billion spent in the garden center and farm supply industry was spent on home food gardens. First Research, an industry market analysis provider, estimates that organic gardening will increase sales 5‑10% annually. Quijano fully expects Coast of Maine to be in that range. And if education efforts by the organic gardening industry increase, companies such as Coast of Maine could expect to see higher returns. The NGA also reports that while nine out of 10 surveyed home gardeners think it's important to use environmentally responsible products in their gardens, only half knew how to follow through on that desire.
Back before Coast of Maine began, Washington County was managing a small composting site at the Marion Transfer Station as a way to keep the burgeoning salmon aquaculture industry's waste stream out of the landfill. Quijano explains that such sites were dotted all up and down the coast from aquaculture farms, wild blueberry farms and shellfish industries, including those from mussel farming. Shells were what hooked Quijano. "It was completely by accident" that he got into the field, he explains with a laugh. Coast of Maine Organic Products was founded with Great Eastern Mussel Farms to assist many of those processors to set up successful composting programs by investing in quality, capacity and the development of new markets. The partners created a pilot project: they gathered the composting materials, created a recipe, designed a bag and test marketed. A small working capital loan from Coastal Enterprises Inc. (CEI) funded the bag development. "We did about 100 pallets. Sold out in about two weeks." If the idea was test acceptance of the product, they'd hit a home run.
At the end of the first year the two partners sat down with CEI and "got serious about it," Quijano explains. Washington County was ready to get out of the compost management business and readily leased the site to Quijano's company through a public bid process. Two Community Development Block Grants totaling about $550,000 assisted with start‑up equipment. "The grants gave us the ability to take on more volume." One of the biggest purchases was a piece of equipment that has pride of place in the compost facility, the equivalent of a rototiller on steroids. The machine straddles winnowed rows and, as it moves, turns and aerates the pile. Front‑loaders are often used for this work, but facility Manager Jeff Moore notes that the machine does not do the work as effectively. Since then the company has been helped with a Washington County Unorganized Territory tax increment financing (TIF) grant of $15,000 to assist with the construction of a 160' communications tower. The total cost was just over $33,000. Like many parts of the county, there was a lack of reliable phone, fax and Internet service at the facility. TIF Program Manager Ken Daye notes that the tower assists with logistics, dispatch, quality and inventory control.
Compost supplies help out other industries as well as all those organic gardeners. Lobster shells come from facilities in Deer Island, Rockland and Tenants Harbor and soon from Prospect Harbor; bark arrives from Baileyville; organic cow manure from Limestone; sawdust and wild blueberry waste from regional mills and farmers; peat from Centerville; and salmon and mussel farming waste from New Brunswick.
Coast of Maine is growing its own capacity all the time, including in‑house lab work, expanded acreage for pallet storage of finished products, and a greenhouse for testing trials of new fertilizer recipes. It is also expanding its garden center reach around the country with three co‑packaging arrangements in eastern Ontario, eastern Michigan and Maryland. However, the Marion Township site "is a good location for many reasons," Quijano says.
Now he'd be really happy, he says, if there were just a shorter paved distance between the facility and Route 9 for all those trucks rumbling on down the road, carrying thousands of pounds of compost to gardeners all across the East Coast and beyond.