Les Menthes Rito Ltée

Rito Mints is the largest manufacturer of mint candies and Conversation Hearts in the Americas.

Rito Mints Ltd was founded and incorporated in 1957. Presently the company is privately owned by Mr. Stephan Leclerc, Chief Operating Officer and Mr. Peter Nassif, President-General Manager. We have grown throughout the years from a regional supplier to and international supplier of confectionary products. We occupy a 75,000 sq-ft building in Trois-Rivieres, Quebec, we employ 70 people, our manufacturing facility is fully integrated with robotics and automation. We presently manufacture approximately 12,000,000 pounds of confectionery products each year and our total capacity is set at 30,000,000 lbs with existing production machinery. We are very specialized in the products that we manufacture; candy mint lozenges and conversation hearts two of the oldest confectionery products in the world. Please visit our web site at www.ritomints.com Please describe how your organization’s activities have the potential to benefit Canada’s economy (e.g., technology transfer, new job creation, increased research and development activity, increased production in Canada, etc.) Rito Mints is continually innovating in regards to manufacturing technologies and product development. We have always been researching ways to improve our facilitys productivity through the research and development of new equipments and or ingredients. Our traditional products have been adapted to make major gains in the organic and natural product segment and we are finalizing the development of a new breath freshener product. All of this put together is what has continually help Rito Mints increase its sales volume and at the same time it has increased our need to hire new employees. Rito Mints hires a non-specialized work force to operate the production equipment, electrical-mechanical technicians for the maintenance of our equipment and engineers for the p