Aztec Products exhibited at the CanClean International Trade Show for the second year in a row, from April 29–30, 2009. This year the show was held in beautiful Toronto, Ontario. The rain was a little colder there than in Philadelphia, but the city was still beautiful.

On the first day of the show, Whit Beverly, the owner of Aztec, showed up with 100 soft pretzels from the Philly Pretzel Factory, a local Philadelphia favorite. He picked them up at 5:40am and they were still warm when he arrived in Toronto at 9am. After a little quick-talking at customs – no they are not fruit, vegetable or dairy – he was able to get through with them and a short taxi ride later they arrived at the show. Mustard was another problem since only 6oz of liquid are allowed through security. Interestingly, Canadian Super Markets still do not open until 10am – like they did here in the US when I was a kid. Fortunately most Canadians do not like mustard on their pretzels anyway.

Ray Rajsky, Aztec’s Regional Manager for Canada, went a day early and set up the show. He also stayed afterwards to clean up the booth. Mark Brown, Aztec’s Manufacturer’s Representative for Southern Ontario also worked the show with Ray and Whit. (Northern Ontario and Quebec are handled by BNG out of West Lorne, Ontario.)

Aztec brought the Sidewinder 24” propane stripper, the Answer 21″ Propane Burnisher, the Kwikleen and the ProScrub to the Expo. As has been common for as long as Aztec has done Expos, at our booth the Sidewinder stole the show. The textured white Powdercoat and all steel body really looks nice. People also really liked the ProScrub. They liked that the ProScrub was simple & economical. They also like that the ProScrub was made in the USA, so parts are readily accessible.

Traffic was pretty solid the first day. Lots of end-user traffic like school districts and nursing homes and some contractors. Several larger distributors had their own booths, as did some other equipment manufacturers. According to Ray Rajsky, “The second day of the show was very slow, but the traffic that was there were serious buyers.” He also said that it was clear that the show was well run by the Canadian ISSA.

Interestingly, Amano/Pioneer was directly across from our booth, but the Pioneer rep was from Denmark. Apparently the Japanese ownership uses the European reps for all western hemisphere shows except the US ones.

Starting next year, the CanClean expo will “take-off” every other year and have a merged show with the USA ISSA. The next CSSA show will be in 2011. We hope to see you all there!!

~ Julie Beverly, Marketing Director