Company History
Conros Corporation has been an innovator and industry pioneer since the company was founded by Navin Chandaria in the late 1970s. Initially making its name in the Firelog business, Conros developed Clean-Burn™, a patented technology that allowed its logs to burn cleaner and longer than wood. The company also took a then-unheard-of approach towards its private label assortment by abandoning the established norm of manufacturing cheaper and lower-quality products at private label retail in favour of presenting partnering retailers with a higher-end assortment and patented technologies through co-branding agreements - an approach that has since become the industry standard.
From an initial 2% market share, Conros expanded its Pine Mountain, Northland and private label Firelog assortment to production at 7 fully-owned and operated manufacturing plants in North America – including the largest North American Firelog plant located in Kitchener-Waterloo, Canada – representative of the lion’s share of the U.S. and Canadian markets. Conros’ rapid success and growth proved that price competitiveness and continued innovation is the key to securing retail distribution. In subsequent years, the company developed exciting new products such as the Javalog™, an innovative and environmentally friendly log made from coffee beans, StarterLogg™, SuperLogg™, and PatioLogg™. Despite its overwhelming share of the entire North American market, Conros divested its Firelog division to Jarden Corporation in 2006.
In the mid-1980s, Conros acquired Ross Adhesives, a fledgling liquid glue company that had suffered in a stagnant category dominated by major manufacturers like Elmer's. Again, Conros saw an opportunity - Ross manufactured the "glue stick", an item that had become wildly popular in Europe but had not taken hold in North America due to its repeated dismissal by the major manufacturers who favoured traditional liquid glue and its established user-base. Seeing potential in the glue stick, Conros attempted to seed the market by selling standard bottles of liquid glue with a glue stick packaged on the side. The Ross "Kangaroo Pack" was an instant consumer success and helped secure Ross Adhesives as an industry leader and innovator, while also establishing the glue-stick as a staple of households all across North America. Later innovations such as the Purple Disappearing glue stick generated additional retail success, while new products like glitter, paints, and arts and crafts supplies added depth to the company's entire portfolio. In 2000, Ross Adhesives was divested to Elmer's Products, Inc.
Also in 2000, Conros aligned its capabilities with LePage's, Inc., a 130-year-old manufacturer and distributor of stationery tapes and mailing supplies. Under Conros' direction and guidance, LePage's was renamed LePage's 2000 and has been re-energized as a successful and innovative distributor of exciting consumer products. Beyond the basic stationery tape assortment, the total LePage's 2000 portfolio has expanded to a much broader range of products including packaging tapes, a complete assortment of mailing and shipping supplies (bubble mailers, bubble cushion, and corrugated boxes), hardware tapes (masking and duct) and sticky notes. Today, LePage's 2000 brings a total assortment of office supplies as a single vendor capable of fully servicing its partnering retailers.
In 2005, Conros acquired Gould Inc., a mailing supplies company and realigned and diversified the original Gould assortment into what is now the Seal-It Brand. The Seal-It™ lineup now consists of packaging and hardware tapes, mailers, mailing boxes, the Bandit™ tape gun, Palmguard™ dispenser, mailing tapes, stationery tapes in Press 'N Cut™ dispensers, and more.