The 37,900 international Subway stores are set to order three restaurant items from a Pacific extruded plastics manufacturer, according to Keith Bruns, Subway franchisee.
Once the order is placed, Aurora Technologies, Inc. (ATI), 19 Industrial Drive, will manufacture cup holders, straw dispensers and cutting boards for approximately all the stores, Bruns said.
Officials of the two firms are working on development of an order for Cambro pans for the stores.
If the Cambro pans are included the order could exceed $37 million a year, Bruns said. The order for the other items would be in the area of $15 million.
Bruns, who chairs the Pacific Industrial Development Authority (IDA), made the announcement at the Nov. 6 board of aldermen meeting.
“This is another way to bring new business to Pacific,” Bruns said.
He said ATI will receive the order after Jan. 1.
Bruns owns three local Subway franchises in Eureka, Pacific and Union and serves on the board of directors of the North American Association of Subway Franchisees (NAASF).
“The order has been approved,” Bruns said. “It’s just a matter of whether the DAI, which owns the international Subway stores, or NAASF will place the order.”
Bruns said he had taken business cards of Tom White, owner of Aurora Technologies, to an NAASF meeting and described his recent tour of the plastics manufacturing firm in Pacific.
“It turns out he had previously manufactured some of the items for a distributor who resold them to Subway,” Bruns said. “Selling directly to Subway he can save us quite a bit of money.”
White founded ATI in 1988 and today the company is the fastest growing plastic fabricator in the United States, according to the firm’s web page. ATI is headquartered in Pacific and has plants in Spartanburg, S.C., Grand Haven, Mich., Mexico and Canada.
Subway Franchise World Headquarters, LLC, (“FWH”) is an affiliate of and service provider to Doctors Associates Inc. (“DAI”) the owner of the SUBWAY® Restaurant System and the SUBWAY® Group which includes 37,000 Subway stores in 98 countries.
Wherever SUBWAY® restaurants are located, the core menu stays relatively the same — with the exception of some cultural and religious variations. World travelers can expect the same ingredients regardless of what nation they are visiting.
“The same is true of fixtures and supplies,” Bruns said. “All 37,000 Subway stores use the same equipment. When a product is approved it is for all the stores.”
