IF W.C. WOOD were alive today he would be amazed that the small farm machinery business he founded in 1930 had grown and expanded to become Canada’s largest freezer manufacturer and the largest Canadian owned appliance manufacturer in the world. Wilbert Copeland (Bert) Wood was born in 1896; a time when Ontarians like his grandfather John and his Uncle Charles were still clearing land for farming. Bert was raised on a farm in Luther Township until 1909 when (like many Ontarians) his family trekked to Saskatchewan where they took a homestead.

He graduated in the early 1920s from the University of Saskatchewan in Agricultural Engineering and joined Massey-Harris in Toronto. He worked as a research engineer on Massey’s new farm machinery until the Great Depression forced Massey to lay him off in 1930.

Bert Wood saw the introduction of electrical power across rural Ontario as an opportunity for a new business and founded W.C. Wood Company Limited in February 1930. His first product was an electrically powered grain grinder, which would save farmers the necessity of having to transport grain from the farm to the feed mills and back to the farm for feed. He had parts for his grinder cast and tooled at a local machine shop and he assembled them on the back porch of his landlady’s home. With the $150.00 he received from a Brampton area farmer for his first grinder, he established his new business.
 
 

1.  The 1999 team at W.C. Wood Company Limited.  2. Young John F. Wood visits the family firm, 1944.

Wood rented an empty candy shop on Howard Park Avenue in Toronto, bought a lathe, and machined his own castings for his electric grinders. In 1934 he moved to a larger factory on Dundas Street north of Bloor in Toronto, where he expanded his electrical farm equipment line to include an oat roller, a farm milking machine and a bulk milk cooler. It was the refrigeration system designed for the milk coolers that gave Wood a new idea and in 1938 the first electrically operated farm freezer was born. Little did he realize that this product would be the stepping stone on the path from farm equipment to appliance manufacturer.

In 1941, the company moved from Toronto to a 25,000 sq. ft. factory at 123 Woolwich Street in Guelph where, for the next 15 years, it grew, prospered, and expanded to a facility of 40,000 sq. ft. By 1956 another move was necessary. The company acquired the Taylor Forbes property and moved its manufacturing operation to an existing 90,000 sq. ft. plant at 5 Arthur Street South in Guelph where it continued to grow. By 1963, additional space was required and the first of many additions was undertaken.

During this time of immense growth another change took place. In 1974, Bert Wood, at the age of 78, stepped down as acting president and handed the reins over to his eldest son, John Frederick Wood. John had been working in the family business since he was a young boy and, after graduating in business from the University of Western Ontario, he naturally assumed the responsibility put before him and today remains the company’s second president.
 

1.  John F. Wood, President, W.C. Wood Company Limited  2.  W.C. Wood, Founder, W.C. Wood Company Limited

By 1985 the company had expanded its product line to include chest and upright freezers, compact refrigerators, compact kitchens, humidifiers and dehumidifiers. It was now operating two facilities totaling 600,000 sq. ft. and, although 95 percent of what was manufactured was for the domestic market, the company was shipping to the United States, Europe, Asia, and the Caribbean. With free trade becoming a very real possibility the company began to focus on a North American market strategy.

In the second half of the 1980s, as exports began to grow, it became apparent that a U.S. facility was necessary in order to keep operating costs in line and remain internationally competitive. In April 1990, W.C. Wood Company opened a 137,000 sq. ft. factory in Ottawa, Ohio, to manufacture upright freezers for the North American market.

This new plant has provided numerous benefits to the corporation, including significantly lower operating costs in serving the U.S. market, an expanding product line to meet North American needs, and significant additional capacity for its growing North American market. While most of the company’s growth over the past decade has been outside Canada, and while the U.S. facility has expanded to over 370,000 sq. ft., the U.S. facility has given the company a broader product base which has resulted in a significant increase to Canadian-made exports.

Today, more than 50 percent of the company’s Canadian production is exported, and both Canadian and American facilities have seen employment growth. By 1995, a third plant was added to the Guelph-based operation, and it is managed today by W.C.’s grandson, David Wood.

Over the years, the company has received many awards from various sources for its products including the National Industrial Design Award, numerous customer recognition awards, the Province of Ontario ”for Achievement Award, the California Energy Award, The Canadian Award of Business Excellence, and the Guelph Quality Award. This past year the company president, John Wood, received the HAIL (Home Appliance Industry Leader) Award. He is the first Canadian to receive such an honour.

In 1977, W.C. Wood produced its one-millionth freezer and by 1997 the company celebrated the production of its ten-millionth appliance.

W.C. Wood Company remains a privately owned Canadian Company that does not believe in absentee landlords and today there are eight family members working in various areas within the organization. The Company’s objective is to see that at the end of every year its suppliers, customers, employees, and share-holders are each a little better off as a result of being in business. The company and its employees will continue to focus on productivity, quality, customer effectiveness, integrity, and organizational effectiveness as the cornerstones of its business.