When flags wave on Canada Day across the country, area residents are justified to revel in civic pride as well as patriotism.

Chances are, most of those flags were made right here in Simcoe County.

“I daresay you could walk down any street in Canada and you’d see one of our flags, says Dennis Brown, president and CEO of Flags Unlimited. “And if you see a flagpole, it’s likely ours.”

Flags Unlimited is a highly visible sight driving through Barrie on highway 400. Banners and flags flank the large manufacturing centre and factory outlet just off the northbound lane in the north of the city.

“We’re fairly recognizable,” Brown says of the location the company has occupied for 10 years. It worked out of a Thornton location for its first 32 years in business.

Brown joined the ownership and management teams three-and-a-half years ago. A Barrie native who left home to study business at university, Brown worked primarily in the pharmaceutical industry concentrating in sales, marketing, merchandising and manufacturing.

Commuting for several years, he was ready to make the switch when the opportunity at Flags Unlimited arose.

“It sounds like a very simple business, but it’s really complex,” he says. “I believe we are Canada’s largest flag and banner company. We probably have a 60-per-cent market share in Canada.”

Supplying Wal-Mart, Canada Tire, Home Hardware, Home Depot, Rona and most other mass merchandisers and hardware stores, Flags Unlimited pays homage to the Canadian Flag daily.

“Our stock business represents 40 to 45 per cent of our business,” Brown explains.

The catalogue is a colourful walk through officialdom, with an assortment of sizes of Canadian flags, provincial flags, U.S. and state flags, as well as military, marine, automotive and seasonal flags. The web site promises: “Any size, any quantity, any occasion and almost any country. We have an immediate answer for all your flag and banner requirements.”

Because outdoor flags are brutalized by the weather, they tend to last only a year or so.

Consequently, governments at all levels, schools, industry, retailers, native groups and other frequent flag fliers are return customers. Brown maintains a sales team specifically to maintain these ongoing customers.

For more unique flags and banners, custom work is called for. It could mean point-of-sale artwork for breweries and distilleries (pub and bar flags for the play-offs for example), or downtown banners for streetscapes.

Brown says he’s already been in touch with Olympic 2010 organizers who will begin planning in earnest early next year.

“In the United States, we do a lot of sports work,” says Brown. “There’s a significant amount of work that goes on around the Super Bowl, for example, not only in the stadium, but around the city and community at large. Sometimes it goes beyond the community and becomes a state event.”

Flags Unlimited is also represented regularly at NASCAR and both professional and NCAA games.

At special events, like ESPN’s X winter games, there are many flags and banners required for each sport, including fencing and podium advertisements.

Brown has a dedicated U.S sales team that works with a dealer network throughout the country.

“We’ve been in the U.S. for six years,” he says. “It would represent about a third of our business.”

The recent downturn in Canadian manufacturing and the weak U.S. dollar has had an impact on business, he adds. Homebuilders, for example, are a key market that won’t be particularly active this year. However, because the company doesn’t rely on the exchange margin, it was still ahead of the game.

“It hit me like it hit every other manufacturer,” he says. “Last year our markets did suffer, but we position ourselves as a premium product with premium customer service, so we don’t have to rely on being the lowest bidder.”

As a global company, Flags Unlimited sources raw materials from around the world. Fabric, for example, is almost impossible to get in North America now.

“The whole textiles industry has gone south,” he says figuratively. “The number of fabric manufacturers is down to a few. The best sources now are offshore.”

With this shift, he is concerned about the ethical treatment of factory workers who produce his material.

“We don’t just buy offshore, we do personal audits,” he says seriously. “I’ve gone over and done inspections myself.”

The wide variety of fabrics used in the Barrie plant are brought in to provide the best match for the end use.

“There are a lot of different variations of polyester,” Brown explains. “We use vinyl too, but polyester is by far our best – we probably have 30 different fabrics we use, all poly blends, but subtly different.”

A polyester with a satin finish may allow for a richer look for point-of-purchase (POP) displays, but it wouldn’t hold up well outside. An open weave can be great for backlit applications, but more opaque options can be better when a close-up quality image is essential.

In addition to the fabrics, the printing processes also play a part in getting the most appropriate results for each project.

Screen printing is a traditional method of using a negative stencil over material so the unprotected fabric comes in contact with the dyes according to the desired design pattern.

“It produces a typical flag, when you put it up on a flagpole, it looks great, but up close you can the dots from the screening. As a POP, it might not be perfect,” says Brown. “It tends to be a lower price for quantity work.”

The flat-bed printer used can produce designs with up to seven colours. It can print up to 400 yards of fabric per hour. “Our finishing line has the highest capacity in North America washing up to 14 yards of fabric per minute,” says company literature.

The DigiTex is a direct-to-fabric process that provides excellent photographic reproductions.

“It’s like a giant inkjet printer,” Brown explains. “It’s fast, but it’s difficult to do thousands and thousands. It’s also a bit pricier than screen printing.”

The best quality reproduction comes from a transfer process that looks at first glance like an old t-shirt press process. Similarly, the design is printed out in reverse on a special paper that is then pressed down with heat on the fabric. In the t-shirt scenario, the design sits on the shirt and can peel.

With this higher-tech version, the design is locked into the place and goes deep into the fabric for long-lasting beauty. The image will not peel off.

“It’s 100-per-cent resolution – the highest,” says Brown. “But it’s very labour intensive and slow.”

It provides the highest quality, but it’s expensive, so it’s appropriate for low volume high quality projects.”

Finally, the fabric-on-fabric appliqué process keeps the original process in manufacturing flags.

“Our skilled sewing team takes incredible pride in hand-sewing every stitch of fabric for a beautiful, luxurious flag,” says the company web site. “Our customers love this option as the appearance is a three-dimensional layering of fabric with the highest quality imaginable.”

“We’re able to go to the marketplace and to my customers and we’re able to offer a vast array of solutions depending upon their needs,” Brown says. “So we can be like a one-stop shop.”

He is looking further a-field to bring their services to new markets.

“The flag industry in Europe is already well developed,” he says. “But we’re looking at South America.”

Through all production, there’s a mind to responsible manufacturing.

“We have an in-house water-treatment plant that takes out all the residue so the water going back into the city system is for all intents and purposes very clean,” promises Brown. “The residue itself goes through a filtration process that creates non-toxic cakes that can go safely to the landfill.”

The air is safe as well.

“The only thing being emitted is water vapour,” says Brown. “So, we’re very conscious of the environment.”

That’s something to wave a flag about.

For more information, click the link provided.