In mid-March Bedford Industries President Jay Milbrandt saw a news story about hospital employees sewing handmade facemasks to help overcome their shortage of personal protection equipment . He wondered out loud if his produce tag manufacturing firm could help.
Within a few days, the company had designed a face shield that could help prolong the use of the N95 masks. By March 25, they were officially in production. Currently, they are manufacturing hundreds of thousands of their trademarked ElastiShields each week and are distributing them around the country.
Marketing Specialist Belinda Heidebrink explained that Milbrandt quickly assembled a group of Bedford engineers and designers to come up with a possible solution based on the expertise and technology that the company had in-house. “We have a very close-knit company that has always pulled together in time of need,” she said. “We were able to gather a variety of people from numerous departments to mockup the initial prototype within one day of the original concept. We also have close relationships with our vendors that came through for us in making the tooling in a timely manner as well. We were manufacturing ElastiShield within three days of the original prototype.”
Bedford, which is based in Worthington, MN, worked with local medical professionals and with the Food & Drug Administration to get the ElastiShield registered. “We have a large health provider near us, Sanford Health, that helped us accomplish this so quickly," said Heidebrink. "We have since been in contact with numerous other healthcare providers and emergency workers nationwide.”
Heidebrink said the company has manufactured the twist tie for many years, which is used as nose wire in facemasks. “We feel the ElastiShields will go hand in hand as a permanent product line offered from Bedford Industries for the medical industry in the future.”
Founded in 1966, Bedford Industries is a global leader in designing, developing, manufacturing and distributing tag and tie products for the produce, bakery, coffee and medical markets, according to Heidebrink. “We customize and print ties and tags for specific produce varieties to meet our customer needs, often including branding, PLU numbers, and barcodes.”
The company’s offerings include Bib Tiesthat wrap around the item with a “bib” featuring product information. “Ideal for a bunch of carrots, kale or spinach,” she said. They also offer ElastiTag and ElastiBand, which wrap firmly around bananas, lettuces, and other items that need to be held together, and PushTag to insert where the stem once was on foods such as cabbage, bok choy and cauliflower. She added that Snap-a-Tags were designed to attach to rubber band bunched produce or directly on the vine of items such as tomatoes.
Heidebrink said Bedford Industries has been involved in produce tagging since the mid-1990s. “Almost 25 years ago, we saw a need for identification, branding, and country of origin labeling in the produce industry. We had the custom printing capabilities, which were incorporated into our twist tie products. The additional products lines have evolved over the years to meet our customer’s requests and requirements.”
Though one could argue that the ElastiShields are the most important product that Bedford is making presently, Heidebrink said the manufacturing of all of its products is still continuing. “We know how important the entire food chain and supply of packaging is right now. We are committed to servicing all of our customers, especially the produce growers, bakeries, coffee, and other food manufacturers.”
