Saskatoon PPE company sees rise in demand for locally made masks, respirators

Saskatoon’s Benchmark PPE is seeing an exponential rise in demand for not only its certified medical grade masks in recent weeks but also for its C-95 respirators.

“It’s like 15 times more demand. It has significantly gone up,” said Justin Stuart, Benchmark’s co-owner and CEO.

The Saskatoon company, which has its roots in originally making engineered products for the oil and gas, and mining and construction sectors, had to quickly pivot when the pandemic hit in March of 2020.

Stuart and co-owner Olga Bugrova bought specialized mask-making equipment from China, learned how to use it all and got their medical device establishment licence. All of their products are certified by Health Canada and the National Research Council, including their N-95 equivalent respirators.

In recent weeks, both Health Canada and Saskatchewan’s chief medical health officer have urged people to upgrade the masks they wear to the best ones they can get, but trying to find an N-95 respirator can be hit or miss in some stores.

Health Canada has also warned that some KN-95 masks from China and other countries may not meet Canadian standards for filtration. Stuart says the masks Benchmark makes have had to pass rigorous standards.

“Health Canada, they were extremely thorough,” he said. “They absolutely made sure that the claims we were making right down to the labelling on the boxing met their standards.”

He knows some people also might not be familiar with the C-95 designation. Stuart said it’s essentially the same as the U.S. National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH) designation, meaning the masks must filter at least 95 per cent of airborne particles.

“The Canadian government created a whole set of different kinds of respirator classifications … It’s got the same kinds of requirements for filtration, fluid penetration and fit test that’s really, really important,” Stuart said.

“In the case of one size fits all, we had to do testing in advance through Health Canada’s regulations of 20 different sizes, so that we know when people buy (them), they will fit approximately well, because you’re breathing through the filter, you’re not breathing around it.”

Several months ago, Benchmark noticed demand for its medical grade masks started rising. Then over the last several weeks, that same demand began for the C-95 masks. The company can now make hundreds of thousands of masks per day.

“If we’re at maximum production based on all the machines that we have, yeah, easily two (hundred thousand), three (hundred thousand), 400,000 a day,” he said.

They have both federal and provincial contracts, and currently provide masks for many Saskatchewan school divisions, along with serving local customers as well.

Stuart said at this point, Benchmark is trying to anticipate demand, and he doesn’t foresee a supply shortage.

More information on the masks and products can be found here.