Start-Up Compounder Seeks Niche in Short Orders, Quick Turns

Backed with a combined 100 years of industry experience, a new compounding business has set up shop in Leominster, Mass., dubbed the “pioneer city” of the plastics industry. Peak Performance Compounding Inc, started pumping pellets in September 2019 as a service-based company undaunted by requests to run engineering resins at small volumes.

“We’ve been thinking about this type of business for over two-and-a-half years,” says Todd Marchand, Peak president. “We feel there is a major need in the market for a customer-driven compounding business that can fill orders ranging from 50 lb to a truckload at fast turnarounds.” Peak runs a wide range of materials, offering pre-colored high quality, specialty and unique engineered products to industrial and medical markets.

Start-up Peak Performance Compounding operates from a plant in Leominster, focusing on running a wide range of materials for industrial and medical markets at order sizes down to 50 lb.

The start-up compounder is owned by Marchand along with Robert Tocci Jr., Michael Carota and Jonas Angus. Tocci and Carota also own and run Aaron Industries Corp., also in Leominster. Aaron is more focused on the high-volume commodity-materials side of the business, while Peak’s focus is on more customized runs at smaller volumes. Notes Marchand, “There is common ownership, but the businesses are run separately.”

"There is a major need in the market for a customer-driven compounding business that can fill orders ranging from 50 lb to a truckload at fast turnarounds.”

Peak currently has eight employees, operating from 10,000 ft² of manufacturing space and additional space for warehousing, with room for growth. It currently runs new 75- and 52-mm twin-screw corotating compounding extruders purchased from an undisclosed supplier. On order are 35- and 22-mm twins. Peak’s service portfolio includes custom formulating, custom coloring, toll processing with customer-specified ingredients, and applications requiring use of radiopaque additives. Marchand says the business will serve customers nationally through direct sales and distribution agreements.

In addition to twin-screw compounding, Peak also offers pellet or dry powder blending, pellet pulverizing, and material testing. Peak is working towards making its production area humidity- and temperature-controlled in Leominster. Peak has started the process of ISO 13485/9001:2015 certification, which is expected to be in place by the first quarter of this year. Marchand says that will enable Peak to penetrate deeper into medical compounding markets.

Best-In-Class Service

Comments Marchand, “Peak believes in treating customers with integrity and best-in-class service; prioritized with reasonable lead time and uncompromised quality. Fast turnaround of samples and no minimum order size is our mantra. We view our relationship with our customers as a partnership; our partners know that we care about their products and businesses as if they were our own.”

By sheer coincidence, shortly before Peak opened its doors, LyondellBasell announced plans to shutter the former A. Schulman compounding plant in Worcester, Mass.