By Mario Toneguzzi

For more than 30 years, the Montreal-based Artitalia Group has been dedicated to manufacturing cost-effective, custom products for its clients, which include some of the biggest corporations in the world.

It’s an art fueled by innovation, creativity and inspiration - qualities the family-owned business forged over the years from its roots, and foundation, in Italy years ago before it immigrated to Canada.

Enzo Vardaro, Vice President, Design, Marketing & Sales, for Artitalia, said the company specializes in designing and manufacturing custom products in four different markets - retail, hospitality and restaurant, material handling, and the postal industry.

“We design and custom manufacture metal and wood products,” said Vardaro.

In retail that includes anything that holds merchandise in a store – from custom display fixtures to complete in store environments. In the Hospitality and Restaurant industry that includes indoor and outdoor commercial furniture. In the Logistics and E-Commerce industry that includes material handling solutions, automated and non-automated commercial parcel boxes, postal lobby boxes, and community postal boxes.

From its humble beginnings in 1976 servicing local markets to today, Artitalia has gained some of the biggest corporate giants as clients including McDonald’s, Amazon, Walmart, Target, IHG, and Canada Post.

“We are the assigned manufacturer for all of the indoor and outdoor furniture for McDonald’s Canada and we also deal with the U.S. and the rest of the world,” said Vardaro. “We specialize in mass markets. We mass produce custom products for multi-national and national chains.

The company is headquartered in Montreal but has satellite offices, warehouse and manufacturing space in New Jersey as well as an office, warehouse and manufacturing space in Xiamen, China.

Vardaro’s parents, like many others, emigrated from Italy to Canada in the early 1970s for a better life. An opportunity to leave behind a recessionary environment and set up a life in Canada where they could dream big of success.

“Back in Italy we were craftsmen. We would buy, repair and re-sell antique furniture. That’s how we got into manufacturing. We were always craftsmen in our trade.” said Vardaro, adding that the family was based just south of Naples.

“From the inception, they specialized in custom manufacturing products for retail and residential, hotel and restaurant, and their business has grown through multiple strategic acquisitions. From four of the original founders in 1976 to over 500 employees today. Sales have reached over $100 million this year,” said Vardaro.

The company is owned today by Antonio Vardaro and his sons Enzo, Nicholas and Giosue. It has domestic and international capabilities with its 1,000,000 square feet of manufacturing and warehousing space and best-in-class automated machinery.

Sample of custom material handling product

“Our client-centric approach enables us to partner with our clients all the while offering the support needed to create custom hybrid programs in order to satisfy all the necessary project requirements needed to make their project a success — and priority — every step of the way,” said Vardaro.

“Our commitment to innovation and success is always top-of-mind when custom designing and engineering products and we pride ourselves on our reputation as being one of the industry’s top-leading manufacturers.”

For more information on Artitalia, visit www.artitalia.com

Mario Toneguzzi, based in Calgary has 37 years of experience as a daily newspaper writer, columnist and editor. He worked for 35 years at the Calgary Herald covering sports, crime, politics, health, city and breaking news, and business. For 12 years as a business writer, his main beats were commercial and residential real estate, retail, small business and general economic news. He nows works on his own as a freelance writer and consultant in communications and media relations/training. Email: mdtoneguzzi@gmail.com

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