St Marys Cement Plant has stood in the town of St. Marys, Ontario, since 1912, and the town grew up around it. This is where the entire story begins: the oldest plant in the St Marys Cement network, set on a site along the banks of the Thames River, chosen because the limestone was close to the surface, the clay and water were abundant, and two national railway lines ran straight through town.
In 1912, John Lind and Alfred Rogers led a small group of investors in building a two-kiln, 180-tonne-per-day cement plant at $250,000. The first cement moved out by horse-drawn carriage. It was an immediate success.
Production tripled by 1938. The plant was modernized after World War II to meet post-war construction demand. By 1966, annual output stood at 675,000 tonnes. A second plant was built adjacent to the original in 1975.
Since opening, the plant has completed more than 200 community projects and created more than 900 jobs in the region. This continuity reflects what Our VC Way calls a Sustainable Legacy: the development of people, communities, and the environment where we operate.
The St Marys plant publishes plant-specific Environmental Product Declarations (EPDs) prepared to recognized international standards. These documents provide verified, third-party assessed data on the environmental profile of our cement products, covering Ordinary Portland Cement, High Early Cement, Portland Limestone Cement, Blended Cement, and Masonry Cement produced here.
Generations of local families have worked here, and their labour is only part of what this plant has given back to St. Marys. Since 1912, we have contributed more to this town than cement. We helped fund St. Marys Memorial Hospital. We donated land for the Canadian Baseball Hall of Fame. We supported the Pyramid Centre, Cadzow Park, and the redevelopment of the old limestone quarry into one of Canada’s largest outdoor freshwater swimming pools, now part of the Lind Sportsplex.
Today, we sponsor local hockey, support hospice care, and work through a formal Community Liaison Committee that meets to hear directly from neighbours and respond to their concerns. Open Dialogue is one of the principles that defines how St Marys Cement operates, and it starts at home.
In 2024, the St Marys plant earned Natural Resources Canada’s ENERGY STAR for Industry certification, placing it in the top quartile for energy performance across Canada and the United States, such as when the team identified and corrected idle energy use, recovering approximately 540,000 kilowatt hours and $52,000 in annual savings.
The plant is advancing the use of Alternative Low Carbon Fuels (ALCF), working to replace a portion of coal and petroleum coke with energy recovered from non-recyclable industrial byproducts through regulated co-processing, an initiative that reduces greenhouse gas emissions in Ontario while diverting materials from landfills.
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