City of Hamilton recognizes, honours its 40 fastest-growing businesses

The City of Hamilton has honoured its 40 fastest-growing businesses, with those recognized ranging from innovative new start-ups to classic family-owned bakeries.

The recipients received their awards during a ceremony at city hall on Tuesday morning as part of the “Fast 40” initiative, which was created for the city’s 2016-2020 economic development action plan.

One of the stretch goals in that plan is to have 10 Hamilton-based companies listed among Canadian Business Magazine’s “500 Fastest-Growing Businesses”.

Glen Norton, Hamilton’s director of economic development, said the city wants to help businesses grow while remaining in Hamilton and contributing to the local tax base.

“What we’re hoping is that for the businesses who won the award, it will help them attract national recognition for their marketing efforts,” said Norton.

“We hope that it’ll help them attract and retain talent, which is really, really key these days. And also attract and retain financing.”

The award recipients range from ones that have been in Hamilton for decades to those that are relatively new to the city.

Although Jason Cassis has been working in Hamilton for 22 years, his latest business venture is still relatively new. He’s the co-founder and CEO of Equal Parts Hospitality, which designs, funds and builds assets in the hospitality sector.

Cassis said the award is hugely important to him as an entrepreneur.

“It means that the city is really active and it’s very engaged in its entrepreneurial culture, which is great and I think that that’s an important part of the livelihood of any strong city,” said Cassis.

“It shows that the city is economically viable and supports that type of initiative as well. We want to get behind cities that support us as much as we’ll support a city.”

While Cassis has worked in other cities, he said Hamilton has a unique environment for entrepreneurs.

“I would say Hamilton has true grit. It has this absolute ‘I think I can’ attitude,” he said. “And I think it is a hyper-creative culture in Hamilton as well, compared to other centres I’ve done business in.”

The “Fast 40” award also shines a light on longtime institutions in the city, including the makers of Roma Pizza.

Philip DiFilippo opened Roma Bakery in 1952 in Hamilton’s north end. Since then, it’s grown into a well-known business and is most famous for its slab pizza.

Anthony DiFilippo, Philip’s grandson, is now in charge and said the city has been endlessly supportive of his family’s business.

“We’ve been in business for over 65 years, so having this now shows that we’re not dying off, that we’re staying current, and that things are still growing within our company,” said DiFilippo.

“The community supports us and we support the community, and that’s very important to us. It’s kind of our ethos of what we do at the bakery.”

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He pointed to Hamilton’s diversity as its strength in supporting entrepreuners.

“Immigration, starting with my grandparents, and even our employees to this day, our night shift are mostly new Canadians. And I think it’s really important that we support each other,” DiFilippo said.

“It helped us get here and it’s helping those people get somewhere too, with their Canadian dream. And I think that’s really unique to the city, and it’s very important.”

Through the “Fast 40” initiative, DiFilippo said the bakery is continuing to grow as it renovates its entire facility, adding new equipment and offices, and expands to more grocery stores on top of the 70 that already carry Roma’s products.

A full list of the “Fast 40” businesses is posted on Invest In Hamilton’s website.