Pittsburgh Woman-Owned Business Breaks into the Canadian Market

JIMDI, located in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, is a leading manufacturer of durable, high quality flooring for swine. JIMDI is a new-to-exporting, woman-owned business that has benefited from the counseling and guidance of the U.S. Commercial Service (CS) Pittsburgh office throughout their export journey. With a particular interest in breaking into other North American markets, they sought counseling, as well as market and export documentation assistance from CS Pittsburgh. To advance their export readiness, CS Pittsburgh recommended JIMDI participate in the virtual Making Global Markets Accessible program, as well as a local in-person United States–Mexico–Canada Agreement (USMCA) event. These events gave JIMDI a newfound knowledge of export documentation requirements, spurring the company to seek additional counseling from CS Pittsburgh. JIMDI reached out to CS Pittsburgh for counseling on export documentation requirements for their swine flooring system and their ability to qualify for US country of origin status. 

Through CS Pittsburgh’s assistance, JIMDI made informed decisions about developing their export strategy and has become more familiar with the documentary requirements of exporting. Pittsburgh counseled JIMDI on export documentation and country of origin guidance, which they then used to successfully ship to their customer in Canada. Additionally, with CS Pittsburgh’s documentation counseling, JIMDI made the most of the sale by utilizing the USMCA’s Agricultural Use Provisions to classify their shipment as duty-free.

“With CS Pittsburgh’s timely export documentation assistance, JIMDI was able to make the most out of our sale to Canada.” - Dawn Gibel, Owner, JIMDI