C.R. Manufacturing Co. has launched an industrial products division with injection molds acquired from a Minneapolis firm that folded last year. The Mound, Minn., firm picked up the molds when Shamrock Industries Inc. closed its doors last summer, said Glenn Lund, C.R.'s custom sales manager.
The new plastic products in-clude a 13-gallon, stackable recycling bin sold to municipal curbside programs, a 22-gallon refuse container and a 28-quart wastebasket, all of which the firm molds on an 800-ton press at its 70,000-square-foot plant in Mound, he said by phone March 13. Also part of the Shamrock deal were molds for plastic pallets, a utility bucket and small nesting bins. Joan Curtis oversees sales for the unit, which mostly sells its products through distributors.
Another piece of Shamrock's business went to Cardinal Pack-aging Inc., Lund said. Last April the Streetsboro, Ohio, firm bought molds for Shamrock's line of lidded ice cream buckets, and is producing them at the Minne-apolis plant that formerly housed Shamrock operations, said Car-dinal spokesman Paul Douglas.
Lund said Shamrock sold itself off piecemeal to a number of buyers, who now own its molds for various products.
C.R. adds industrial products to an already sizable proprietary business, which makes up roughly 50 percent of total sales, Lund said. In fiscal 1994, sales were $7.3 million. Lund would not disclose 1995 sales.
The company has 28 injection presses in Mound, and 12 machines at a second plant, in Grantsburg, Wis., which gives it excess capacity, so customers' just-in-time needs don't get pushed out by C.R.'s own products, Lund said. The proprietary business helps the firm survive the ups and downs of the custom side, he said.
Older proprietary product lines include plastic scoops and pour dispensers for liquor bottles. Each week the company molds 5 million polystyrene sword picks used to spear hors d'oeuvres, or olives for mixed drinks.
Lund would not say how many people C.R. employs.