Ontario-based Enjay Converters has acquired New Method Packaging LLC, a Springfield, Ohio designer and manufacturer of corrugated and paper-based food packaging, in a deal that gives the Canadian converter its first owned production footprint in the United States. Financial terms were not disclosed.
The Strategic Fit
New Method, founded in 1982 by Neil Miller, operates from two adjacent Springfield facilities totalling roughly 140,000 square feet — a 97,000-square-foot production building and a 43,000-square-foot warehouse. Its core product lines include cake circles, trays and boards, ovenable baking trays, and carryout boxes, sold predominantly into bakery, pizza, and foodservice channels across the U.S. Enjay, co-founded in 1983 by Jay Cassidy and headquartered in Cobourg, Ontario, operates a 90,000-square-foot manufacturing and office facility alongside a 70,000-square-foot distribution centre. Its product portfolio mirrors New Method's and extends into cake boxes, muffin cups, disposable piping bags, and other bakery accessories serving major grocery retail chains and independent bakeries throughout North America.
The product-line overlap is deliberate. Rather than a diversification play, Enjay is doubling down on food-contact grade bakery packaging — a category where scale, proximity to U.S. customers, and manufacturing redundancy carry competitive weight. Adding a second production site allows the combined business to shorten lead times for U.S. accounts and reduce concentration risk in its Canadian supply base.
Leadership Transition
The deal also resolves a succession question at New Method. Kevin Miller, who joined the company at its founding in 1982 and assumed the presidency in 2006, will gradually step back, handing day-to-day operations to his son Jerad Miller. Jerad, along with New Method's full management team and employee complement, will remain in place and collaborate with Enjay's leadership — a structure designed to preserve customer relationships and operational continuity during integration.
Montréal-based Champlain Financial Corporation provided financial backing to Enjay in completing the transaction, the company said.
What It Means for Operators
For foodservice and retail bakery buyers, the combination consolidates two complementary vendors into a single cross-border supplier capable of fulfilling orders from Canadian and U.S. facilities. The ovenable baking tray and pizza carryout box segments, in particular, have seen steady demand growth as ghost kitchen operators and national pizza chains expand their packaging specifications. A manufacturer with bilateral production capacity is better positioned to absorb volume swings and regional logistics disruptions than a single-site converter.
The transaction fits a broader consolidation trend in specialty paper-based food packaging, where smaller family-owned converters are increasingly partnering with or selling to larger platforms seeking geographic scale. For more on activity in this segment, see our coverage of packaging M&A trends and foodservice supply chain developments.
Enjay's acquisition of New Method signals that mid-market packaging converters with tight category focus — bakery, pizza, and foodservice paper goods — are attractive consolidation targets as buyers seek to reduce supplier fragmentation and secure domestic manufacturing capacity on both sides of the U.S.-Canada border.
Written by Michael Politz, Author of Guide to Restaurant Success: The Proven Process for Starting Any Restaurant Business From Scratch to Success (ISBN: 978-1-119-66896-1), Founder of Food & Beverage Magazine, the leading online magazine and resource in the industry. Designer of the Bluetooth logo and recognized in Entrepreneur Magazine's "Top 40 Under 40" for founding American Wholesale Floral, Politz is also the Co-founder of the Proof Awards and the CPG Awards and a partner in numerous consumer brands across the food and beverage sector.