Our History

Three generations. One mission. A river that connects them.

Over 70 years ago, our journey began in Montreal as a small family business, guided by a simple idea: serve our customers with excellence, and never stop earning their trust. Founded in 1954, Gould has grown from a modest workshop into a North American leader in recycled plastics, film extrusion, and private-label solutions — while remaining, to this day, 100% owner-operated and proudly in its third generation.

Our story is inseparable from the people who built it. Bert Gould, our founder , was an inventor at heart; the folded-bag machinery he designed in the 1970s is still relied upon in factories today. That spirit of ingenuity became our inheritance. We rebuilt this company from near-failure — from a team of seven — into a 150-person, fully integrated operation, by working every role on the floor and treating each customer relationship as a partnership rather than a transaction.

Built for the largest shelves in North America

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Specializing in private brands, we have always combined innovation, superior quality, and exceptional customer service to meet the needs of an ever-changing market. Today our products reach the largest retailers on the continent : including Costco Wholesale, Home Depot, Walmart, Canadian Tire, Metro, Sobeys, and McKesson  competing on the same shelves as the biggest names in the category, under our customers' own labels.

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But at Gould, we see beyond the bag. Waste is not just a necessity to manage,  it is an opportunity to transform. Through full vertical integration, we turn millions of pounds of residual material into sustainable, high-performance products every year. We've reimagined what circularity can look like, from giving underused materials a second life in partnership with visionary customers to bold experiments that marry craftsmanship with environmental purpose. Every product we design carries the same commitment: that innovation and sustainability belong together.

A new chapter, written along an old corridor

In 2026, we wrote the most ambitious chapter in our history: our first industrial presence in the United States, with the acquisition of a manufacturing facility in Summit, Mississippi. After several years of searching for the right strategic fit, we found it  a plant of more than 100,000 square feet on six acres, served by a CN railway siding capable of holding 30 railcars, with the capacity to produce up to 80 million pounds of product and recycle 10 million pounds of plastic each year.

With our Montreal plant at full capacity, this expansion lets us scale to better serve the major retailers who operate across borders, while sourcing our plastic in the United States — reinforcing a truly continent-wide, integrated circular economy. It is a natural expansion, guided by the same North American corridors that have linked our regions for centuries.

That history is no accident. Long before modern supply chains existed, French explorers paddling south from the St. Lawrence were the first Europeans to chart the Mississippi River all the way to its delta. The corridor that once connected Quebec to the American South is the very same one we now use for commerce. This centuries-old connection lives on in our new logo, where three symbols come together: the fleur-de-lys, carrying our Quebec roots; the river, the route that has linked our two regions for generations; and the magnolia, Mississippi's own flower, standing for hospitality, hope, and rebirth.

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Plastics with purpose  and people at the center

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This acquisition secures and strengthens 150 jobs across our Mississippi and Montreal operations and positions the facility for years of investment and growth. In the months ahead, we are committed to modernizing the site and bringing our culture with us  humanizing the workspace, strengthening each team's sense of belonging, and marking the premises with an iconic mural that reflects who we are. We are investing in this facility and, above all, in the people who make it run.

We were honored to be welcomed into the state. Governor Tate Reeves shared:

"Gould Industries' decision to invest in Pike County is another sign that Mississippi is attracting innovative companies that see long-term value in our state. This project strengthens Mississippi's manufacturing sector while advancing solutions that will benefit industries well into the future. I am proud to welcome Gould Industries to Mississippi."

True to our DNA

Through every chapter  from a Montreal workshop to a two-country platform  what hasn't changed is who we are. Gould remains 100% privately owned, with Frederico Panetta as sole shareholder, still actively involved at head office and on the factory floor. We are a family business that became a key player in building a greener, more resilient industry and an invitation to transform, together, today's challenges into tomorrow's opportunities.