VistaTek seeing growth, in part thanks to bioplastics

Stillwater, Minn. — Danny Mishek didn't get into bioplastics on purpose. He heard that plant-based resins were hard to process, and he wondered if his company could solve some of the problems.

It started eight years ago, when Mishek was president of the Society of Plastics Engineers' upper Midwest section.

"At that time, there were all these conversations about these new biomaterials, plant-based materials. And everyone was talking about how bad they were. They're too brittle; they had no heat deflection. They sucked."

That intrigued Mishek, so he bought a 50-pound bag of polylactic acid resin.

"I sampled it in some of our molds, and we experimented with it. And yeah, there were some flaws with it. But in the back of my mind, I knew we could design around some of the flaws of the material," Mishek said.

The effort was successful, and now bioplastics are a growth driver at Vista Technologies LLC, a Stillwater-based custom injection molder.

The company has two proprietary lines of products made from plant-based plastics: caterware and horticultural products. VistaTek, as the company is known, now has a unit called SelfEco that designs and manufactures plant-based plastics products.

VistaTek's first bioplastic product was a flower pot. The company quickly earned a reputation as a pioneer in bioplastic injection molding.

"PLA was mostly used in film and thermoformed products. I had suppliers of biomaterials calling me, asking questions about the parameters for injection molding their materials," Mishek said. "So I thought this is going to be special because nobody else is really doing it.

"Most of my competitors aren't interested in something like this. It's a different philosophy. They hear a material is more expensive and takes longer to process, and they aren't interested. But I was like, 'Well, why does it take longer to process? Why is it more expensive?' So we found ways to make it benefit us," he said.

Bioplastics now account for just over 5 percent of VistaTek's sales. Mishek declined to provide figures, but he said the company posted a 40 percent sales increase in 2019. VistaTek has 32 employees on two shifts.

To keep up with demand, VistaTek added a new Engel injection press last year, and it is adding another in 2020.

"We put our future in Engel's hands. I have been really happy with their service and [the lead time for buying new equipment]," Mishek said. "It's been really solid."

Mishek's parents, Jim and Lorinda Mishek, started the company in 1996, when he as a junior in college. At the time, VistaTek was a rapid prototyping specialist with one small stereolithography machine. It was located in a 7,000-square-foot building in nearby Vadnais Heights, Minn., north of St. Paul.

Danny joined the company in 1998.

"I was kind of born into manufacturing. Both of my grandparents were in manufacturing, and my parents. So without knowing it, I was destined to make things and to be a voice for U.S. manufacturing," he said.

VistaTek added tool building capabilities, then injection molding with a variety of used machines. The company still makes about 10-15 percent of its tooling in-house, Mishek said.

After a few years, the company moved from Vadnais Heights into a larger facility in White Bear Lake, Minn. In 2013, it bought its current space, a 50,000-square-foot factory that formerly housed injection molder UFE Inc.

Now VistaTek is ready to grow again, and the company is getting bids to expand the existing plant, Mishek said.

While it still leans on its expertise in tooling and product development, today VistaTek is a custom and proprietary injection molder, which Mishek views as more steady work.

"It took us about five years to rebrand ourselves and let people know we're no longer really your prototype guys," he said. Key markets include telecommunications, medical devices, agricultural and foodservice.

"We're looking to go deeper with our best customers. We know their buyers, know their engineers," Mishek said. "We're not a giant U.S. manufacturer with hundreds of presses, only running [jobs for] millions of parts. But we have the ability to grow into that space with our current customers."

2019 also saw a partial change in ownership. Brothers Charlie and Harrison Andrews bought a stake in the company, which they now share with Mishek. Charlie is now director of operations, and he's charged with continuous improvement projects. Harrison handles sales and marketing.

"They are helping to push me where I want to go," Mishek said.

Mishek has a bachelor's degree in marketing and public relations from Mount Mercy University in Cedar Rapids, Iowa. He's an active blogger and has used social media and Kickstart to help launch the company's bioplastics molding business.

Last year, SelfEco had garden pots in 66 Walmart stores, although Mishek said the relationship with the megaretailer "wasn't the best fit." Thanks to changing consumer attitudes, he thinks business is poised to grow rapidly.

"We've been working with the one of the largest growers in North America and Canada, and I think 2021 is going to be an amazing year for our garden line," he said. "We have been doing direct product development regarding what we have patented and what the end customer wants, and we're looking at running between 30 million to 100 million garden pots for these customers, if everything lines up. These are opportunities that we didn't have one or two years ago," Mishek said.

Now that VistaTek has a reputation as a green materials innovator, Mishek said he hears from all kinds of people who are developing sustainable materials.

"People ship us material with manure in it, soy flour, distillers' grains, egg shells, bird feathers. I mean, whoa, my gosh," Mishek said. "We're getting work using recycled materials, from people collecting yogurt cups, people that are claiming materials before they're ocean bound, and they're sending us jobs because they like our philosophy of being a green manufacturer."

He thinks younger consumers are more likely to be interested in biomaterials, including compostable products. "I just think that the future is pretty bright," Mishek said.