THE GRANGER PLASTICS CO.
What: Manufacturer of custom plastic components contracted by other companies, and a line of proprietary plastic products. Granger uses a rotational molding production process.
Where: 1600 Made Industrial Drive, Middletown
Phone: 513-424-1955
President: Jim Cravens
General Manager: Shawn Cravens
Sales and Marketing Manager: Alli Cravens
Website: www.grangerplastics.com
Employees: Approximately 30
A 20-year-old Middletown manufacturing company has received national attention for its unique in-ground plastic tornado shelter product.
The Granger Plastics Co. was recently featured on the cable television show “Shipping Wars,” when one of the show’s truck drivers bid to haul six of the tornado shelters to a Granger dealer in Arkansas.
Before that, Granger was part of a live broadcast on The Weather Channel during the height of tornado season coverage.
When a tornado is coming, most people head to the basement.
“That’s the safest place in their home, but the house could collapse in,” said Alli Cravens, sales and marketing director for Granger.
Granger designed and started selling more than six years ago a tornado shelter to homeowners and consumers looking for extra protection from storms, Cravens said.
The local company’s shelter is buried underground with only the door and ventilation visible. It meets federal guidelines and has been tested to withstand the most destructive F5 tornado, she said.
Granger also sells the shelter, which fits six adults, to businesses, government agencies and other institutions.
Polyethylene can better withstand soil erosion over time than competing tornado shelters made from concrete, Granger claims.
“We’re the only plastic tornado shelter door that has ever exceeded FEMA testing,” she said.
Granger Plastics, located on Made Industrial Drive, says it’s a leader in the rotational plastic molding process. The company was founded in 1994 as a custom contractor to make plastic parts for air cargo and trucking containers. Other manufacturing companies hire Granger to make various plastic components, and it has developed new business over time by producing parts that were previously made from steel, fiberglass or concrete, said General Manager Shawn Cravens
But in more recent years, the company has developed proprietary products such as the tornado shelter. The owned product lines helped cushion the company during the 2007 to 2009 economic downturn when contract orders slowed. Other proprietary products include memorial vases and urns and seven-sided poker tables.
An aviation division was started in 2013 when Granger obtained Federal Aviation Administration certification to make aircraft containers from start to finish. Before, Granger produced only a part for the containers.
After losing more than half its sales volume during the worst of the crisis, sales at Granger have been climbing back, Shawn Cravens said. Last year, sales grew more than 60 percent from the year before.
Now, about 30 employees work in three shifts around the clock. The company is hiring, but like other manufacturers, it's struggling to find "good employees."
“We’re on our way back,” said Jim Cravens, president of the family-owned business.
The rotational molding process transforms a raw powder into hardened plastic using heat transfer and gravity, said Jim Cravens. The powder goes into a mold of the end product and the mold is continuously turned on two axes at the same time while it is heated and cooled.
Milk jugs, for example, are made using a different plastic manufacturing process known as blow molding.
The benefit of rotational molding compared to blow molding is that rotational molded products have an even thickness and material strength throughout, the Cravens said.
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