Masters in paints since 1950, Société Laurentide is a family-owned paint manufacturer and proud participant of the “Well Made Here” program!
From its head office in Shawinigan, Société Laurentide manages more than 200 employees in four manufacturing plants located in Shawinigan, Quebec and in Richibucto, New Brunswick.
Société Laurentide’s activities encompass:
Young graduate in Chemistry, Gabriel Buisson launches into the paint industry producing a lacquer thinner. He works out of a modest location adjacent to the 6eme Rue in Shawinigan.
Laurentide Chemicals is incorporated.
The Shawinigan plant is built. It still stands, to this day, as the Head Quarters for the company.
The Richibucto plant (New Brunswick) is inaugurated. It specializes in the production of radiator antifreeze and traffic paint. The company is expanding.
Laurentide Chemicals acquires Peinture Nationale de Québec, making them the second largest player in Quebec’s architectural paint market.
After 40 years of continual growth, the Quebec company renews itself in the face of a shifting economy. It chooses to « be part of the solution and not the environmental problem ». From then on, the focus is on paint recovery management and its reclamation process, in Quebec as well as in the rest of Canada. In the same year, paint recovery and recycling germinates in the mind of Victoriaville high school teacher, Normand Maurice, who seeks out to enhance the potential of young students with learning dissabilities. Troubled equally by the quantity of school drop outs, the destruction of the environment and energy waste, Normand Maurice assumes that « new resources can be generated from waste ».
The « father of recovery » in Quebec, Normand Maurice, creates the first Business and Resource Recovery Training Center (CFER) in Victoriaville. Along with his students, he recovers paint residues brought to them by citizens, and creates new paint. In close collaboration with Peinture Laurentide and Rona retailers, the first version of recycled paint is marketed.
Normand Maurice’s determination brings an influential group from the Quebec paint industry, Société Laurentide and Sico Paints, to join forces and eliminate sending paint residues and their containers to landfill sites, which represented 50% of all household waste at the time. The first business relationship is established on a voluntary basis with the CFER in Victoriaville.
The members of the paint industry lend support to the CFER in Victoriaville with an investment of $1.2 million dollars.
Manufacturers and paint brand owners from Quebec, such as Société Laurentide, create Éco-Peinture, a non-profit corporation on the ecological management of paint. Its creation occurs when the Government of Quebec adopts a Regulation for the recovery and reclamation of discarded paint and paint containers, thereby creating an obligation for all businesses selling architectural paint in Quebec to recover, or have recovered, residual paint and their containers.
Société Laurentide acquires Peinture Récupérée du Québec (PRQ) in Victoriaville while manufacturing Rona ECO paint, available across Canada. It is the start of the production of Boomerang recycled paint!
Laurentide Industrial develops a new water-based Uraqua system isocyanate free for the doors and windows industry.
Société Laurentide concludes a distribution agreement with General Paint for Para and Crown Diamond paints.
Société Laurentide expands and modernises its Victoriaville plant.
Société Laurentide relocates its architectural paint production from Quebec city to a new plant in Shawinigan.
Société Laurentide’s architectural paint division is acquired by the COMEX multinational
Société Laurentide renames its Laurentide industrial division to Laurentide Industrial coatings, a name better suited to describe its activities.
Société Laurentide is consolidating its post-consumer paint manufacturing operations to its Shawinigan facility located at 5230 Boulevard Royal, at the Research and Development Center, dedicated to coatings and post-consumer paints. The Laurentide Re/sources plant in Victoriaville, Quebec, remains a state-of-the-art sorting center for the recovery of paints, hazardous household waste (HHW), batteries, compact fluorescent bulbs and oil waste, in collaboration with various Quebec government programs.
Société Laurentide groups the activities of its Laurentide Industrial Coatings and Laurentide Paint divisions under one entity, Laurentide Paint. Laurentide Paint now includes traditional architectural paints and post-consumer paints and a wide range of high performing specialty paints intended for manufacturers. All paint expertise falls under one roof.
Laurentide Paint is turning the corner on e-commerce and increasing its efforts to increase their presence in emerging markets.
Recycling operations at the Laurentide Re/sources Atlantic plant, are moving to 23 Laurentide Street in Richibucto, New Brunswick. Plant facilities are now 25 000 square feet and allow for an increased capacity of the sorting center of post-consumer paint. This new plant also includes explosion-proof areas and storage adapted to the growing needs of the New Brunswick paint recycling program, provided in collaboration with Product Care.
Société Laurentide confirms the great return of its architectural paint under the traditional brand, Laurentide Paint. The launch of this new, highly anticipated lineup is scheduled for 2021.