Case study: The drop-out ceiling that paid for itself
When Small Batch Organics, a specialty granola-making company in Manchester Center, Vermont, outgrew their first production facility, they leased space in an existing factory and took up the mission of remodeling it into a sparkling-clean food-processing facility. The company tackled the challenges of renovation and code compliance themselves, without a general contractor, and got a rapid education in construction. One of the surprising things they learned was that installing Ceilume thermoformed drop-out ceiling panels enabled them to utilize the existing fire sprinklers without alteration, saving them enough money to pay for the entire ceiling.
Small Batch Organics’ president Lindsay Martin describes her team of 13 as “pretty hands-on people.” The company’s original manufacturing kitchen was good as an “entry-level facility,” but it was oddly-shaped, and taught them what kind of space they really needed. “We totally understood how inefficiently we were working based on the dictates of our space,” she recalls. “We had a lot of practice tripping over ourselves.”