Richard Bockner, principal at ARD Outdoor Furniture, sits in the company's Toronto showroom on March 20. Mr. Bockner has been replacing the American products in his supply chain with Canadian alternatives. It was a relatively simple matter for some items, but finding an alternate source for outdoor fabric proved difficult.Cole Burston/The Globe and Mail
Richard Bockner is doing his part for Canada in the North American trade war.
As soon as economic hostilities broke out, the owner of ARD Outdoor Furniture started replacing the American products in his lineup with Canadian alternatives. For some items, such as fire tables and Muskoka chairs, it was a relatively simple matter of switching suppliers.
But as Mr. Bockner dug deeper into his supply chain, things became more challenging. ARD manufactures all of its own cushions, pillows – what the outdoor furnishing industry refers to as soft goods – at its factory in the Toronto suburb of Scarborough.
“The decision here was ‘well, let’s streamline the entire production, let’s make sure our threads, our foam, our packaging, our plastics, let’s make sure that all of that is done in Canada,‘” Mr. Bockner said.
A worker packages pillows for patio furniture at ARD Outdoor Furniture's Scarborough factory. ARD manufactures all of its own cushions, pillows – what the outdoor furnishing industry refers to as soft goods – at its factory in the Toronto suburb of Scarborough.Cole Burston/The Globe and Mail
“I’m just going to support a Canadian company. And I’m not really one of those people that gets active with these things, but you kind of have to right now. It is a war without bombs and bullets.”
The one weapon he cannot find in the Canadian arsenal is outdoor fabric.
“Fabric in my industry, I can’t get around fabric. The same way you would say Kleenex is the tissue brand that everybody knows. In outdoor fabrics, Sunbrella is the brand that everybody knows,” Mr. Bockner said.
Sunbrella is the global standard in outdoor fabrics. It has competitors, of course, but no other brand rivals its vast reach and scale. Anyone with an awning, patio umbrella, outdoor pillows or upholstered outdoor furniture has probably purchased a Sunbrella product.
“I still have to bring in Sunbrella because if I don’t bring in Sunbrella then I’m at a disadvantage. People will go to my competitors. ”
Workers sew fabric to be used on patio furniture at ARD Outdoor Furniture's Scarborough. Sunbrella is the global standard in outdoor fabrics. Anyone with an awning, patio umbrella, outdoor pillows or upholstered outdoor furniture has probably purchased a Sunbrella product.Cole Burston/The Globe and Mail
Sunbrella is so American that its parent company – North Carolina-based Glen Raven Inc. – boasts of having produced the fabric used in the American flag that was planted on the moon by Apollo 11 astronauts Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin in 1969. While the company produces some of its products at factories in France and China, most of the Sunbrella fabric used in North America comes from its one-million-square-foot facility in Anderson, S.C.
The fabric is so ubiquitous that even outdoor furniture makers that have built their brands around using as many locally sourced supplies as possible still use Sunbrella.
Fabrics for patio furniture are seen at ARD Outdoor Furniture's Scarborough. Sunbrella fabric is so ubiquitous that even outdoor furniture makers that have built their brands around using as many locally sourced supplies as possible still use it.Cole Burston/The Globe and Mail
On the “materials” section of the website for Victoria-based outdoor furniture maker Dodeka, the word “local” is prominently displayed in large, block letters. Owner Mark Warner prides himself on keeping every stage of the Dodeka manufacturing process – “from conceptual drawings to completion” – close to the company’s headquarters in Victoria’s District of Metchosin. But even his products use Sunbrella fabric.
“I would be absolutely willing to buy from a Canadian producer; if you know of one point me in that direction and I would definitely contact them,” Mr. Warner said. “I honestly don’t know if there are any equivalent Canadian manufacturers of fabric like that.”
Mr. Bockner said the current environment represents an opportunity for a Canadian fabric maker to step in with a domestic alternative, though none currently exists.
Afshin Mohamdzadeh carries foam for patio furniture at ARD Outdoor Furniture's Scarborough factory. Fabric sourcing issues aside, the patio industry’s push to procure more made-in-Canada products has nonetheless been a boon for domestic outdoor furniture manufacturers.Cole Burston/The Globe and Mail
There are several Canadian companies that possess the necessary infrastructure to produce outdoor fabric capable of rivalling Sunbrella, according to Jeff Ayoub.
“The ability is there and the technology is there,” said Mr. Ayoub, chair of the Canadian Textile Industry Association’s board of directors and president of Calko Group, a Montreal-based maker of specialized textiles and protective equipment. “There are four of our members who could make that tomorrow.”
While they could, Mr. Ayoub said, they likely won’t, given the capital investment required and the lack of certainty on how long the trade war will last.
“Our industry will invest if you can tell me that it is not just a short-term fix,” he said. “Because I am not going to spend and convert and then when the tariffs get rolled back four months from now or get carved out and we are told we have to meet the price point of their Vietnamese supplier that they’ve been with for 20 years.”
Now is an especially difficult time for Canadian textile manufacturers to make large investments into expanding their business, Mr. Ayoub said, because the industry is as interconnected as the automotive sector.
“Take our little business as an example,” he said. “We get fibre from the United States, it gets turned into yarn in Canada, we then send it to our facility in the United States to make it, in this case, into something that then comes back up to Canada to be finished at our finishing facility to then go back to the U.S. to get shipped to our customers who then ship it to Mexico to turn it into something else.”
Fabric sourcing issues aside, the patio industry’s push to procure more made-in-Canada products has nonetheless been a boon for domestic outdoor furniture manufacturers. C.R. Plastics, for example, has received triple the amount of interest in its products this year than it typically receives in the lead-up to patio season.
The company employs about 100 people at its 300,000-square-foot facility in Stratford, Ont., which turns post-consumer recycled plastics into outdoor furniture. Muskoka chairs (also known as Adirondack chairs) are C.R.’s bread and butter, though the company also produces several other product lines ranging from dining sets to outdoor sofas.
Meaghan Robinson, C.R.’s director of sales, said there has been a surge in inquiries from specialty retailers across Canada over the past several weeks wanting to learn more about the company’s story.
“If they had previously imported similar products to ours from American brands, there has been a really big movement to remove those from the floor and to put our products in those spots,” she said.