NAICS 327320Canadian industry · 6-digitlocal market

Ready-mix concrete manufacturing

This Canadian industry comprises establishments primarily engaged in mixing together water, cement, sand, gravel or crushed stone to make concrete, and delivering it to a purchaser in a plastic or unhardened state. — Statistics Canada, NAICS 2022A

Establishments · CanadaA: 750
Under 10 employeesA: 36%
Establishments · USA: 5,969
Employment · USA: 89,259
Payroll · USA: $6.4B

Size and shape

How many businesses there are and how small they are. Fragmentation is the first thing an entrant — or anyone selling software into this industry — needs to know, and it is one of the few things that is actually measured.

Canadian establishments by number of employeesA

1–411315%

5–915521%

10–1925334%

20–4918925%

50–99345%

100–19961%

200–4990—

500+0—

Of 750 Canadian establishments with employees, 36% have fewer than ten — weighted toward mid-sized establishments.

Where they areA

Ontario25133%

Quebec17023%

British Columbia10814%

Alberta9713%

Largest four provinces by establishment count. Establishments with employees only — sole operators with no payroll are not in this table, so in trades and personal services the true number of businesses is higher.

How many new establishments are still tradingA

Manufacturing, US · opened 2020

86.2%

1 year

70.8%

3 years

58.4%

5 years

45.3%

10 years

opened 2015

Measured, not forecast: the share of US establishments opening in one year that were still active later. It counts good operators and bad ones together, which is exactly why it is the honest answer to “what are the odds”. It is for the whole sector rather than this market, and the ten-year figure comes from an older cohort because no younger one has reached ten years.

How businesses here compete

The structural profile of subsector 327, which every industry beneath it inherits. This is analyst judgment from how the subsector is organised — not research into this industry, and not a measurement.

local competitionhigh capitalUNVERIFIEDinherited from 327 Non-metallic mineral product manufacturing

Concrete and aggregates do not travel, so each market is a haul radius and often a local oligopoly. Entry means a permitted site, which is the scarce thing.

Who sets the price: Whoever owns the nearest pit or plant.
The software it runs on: Batching, dispatch and ticketing.

Market screens and studies

Market-entry records filed along this branch of the hierarchy. A record at or beneath this code is about this industry; one above it is about something wider that contains it.

Screened one level up. Nothing is filed at this exact code; the screen for 3273 Cement and concrete product manufacturing covers it.

Operating businessScreenedfiled at 3273

Precast Concrete Products PlantOne thing must be true

binding constraint: capital intensity

The 327 record already cuts ready-mix and aggregates on the pit permit, and cement is a kiln owned by a multinational. What is left in this group is the part an ordinary entrant could plausibly reach: precast — septic tanks, steps, barriers, manholes, utility vaults, wall panels — cast in forms in a yard and trucked to site. No quarry is needed; cement and stone are bought in. The industry looks the part: 1,239 Canadian establishments, 68% with fewer than twenty employees [A], and in the US about 21 workers per establishment [A]. Smith-Midland, a small listed precaster, is a rare look inside at near-entrant scale: 2025 revenue of $93.4M from three plants and 285 workers, net income of $12.5M [A], selling within a 450-mile radius, mostly on estimates to general contractors bidding public work. This screen does not find a clean kill. The nearest thing to one is capital: Smith-Midland spent $9.3M on forms, barrier fleet and plant in 2025 — 10% of revenue — and plans over $12M in 2026 [A], needed a bank waiver of its $5M capex covenant to do it, and attributes the year's margin to special barrier-rental projects that carried a lower cost of sales than ordinary product work. Its own filing calls the industry highly competitive and fragmented, with competition limited by distance from the site [A]. The commodity end — a tank or a manhole to a provincial standard — is priced by whoever is closest, and the large end was consolidated at scale: Quikrete paid about $2.74B including debt for Forterra [A], a pipe and precast maker operating in the US and Eastern Canada. A full study should test buying an existing small precaster with its approvals and yard, in a named region, rather than building one.

NAICS 32735 vendors named11 sourced figuresOpen →

Filed above — wider than this industry

Operating businessScreenedfiled at 327 Non-metallic mineral product manufacturing

Ready-Mix Concrete & AggregatesStructure decides

binding constraint: entry cost + regulatory drag

Aggregate pits are among the best local businesses that exist — a haul radius is a natural monopoly and the product cannot be imported economically — which is exactly why the permit is the whole business and takes years, public hearings and reclamation bonding to obtain. Buying an existing permitted pit means paying for that moat in full. Ready-mix without owned aggregate is the low-margin half of the same industry, buying its input from the competitor.

NAICS 3276 vendors named11 sourced figuresOpen →

Software serving this industry

The vertical software markets filed along the same branch — who sells to these businesses and who they would have to displace — and then the generic categories every business buys whatever it does.

No vertical software market has been recorded along this branch. What the subsector typically runs on: Batching, dispatch and ticketing.

Catalogued categories — named, not analysed

Discrete manufacturing ERP SaaS 31-33

And what every business buys · 25 generic categories

Sold to every industry rather than this one, so they are filed against the software industry's own code. The same few vendors recur across most of them.

Who works here

The occupations employed in Manufacturing, most concentrated in it first. The share is measured against the whole sector, not this industry — the published cross-tabulation stops there.

Concentrated in this sectorA

Aircraft assemblers and aircraft assembly inspectors One industry 91.3%

Supervisors, assembly and fabrication One industry 88.3%

Machine operators and related workers in pulp and paper production and wood processing and manufacturing One industry 86.1%

Managers in manufacturing and utilities One industry 84.4%

Machine operators and related workers in chemical, plastic and rubber processing One industry 82.7%

Mechanical, electrical and electronics assemblers and inspectors One industry 82.3%

Machine operators and related workers in food, beverage and associated products processing One industry 79.1%

Machine operators and related workers in mineral and metal products processing and manufacturing One industry 77.7%

Furniture, wood, plastic and other products assemblers, finishers and inspectors One industry 73.9%

Machine operators and related workers in textile, fabric, fur and leather products processing and manufacturing One industry 70.8%

These jobs are mostly done here. An operator in this industry is competing for them against others in the same industry, not against the whole economy.

And the jobs every business has

Other technical trades Across the economy 20%

Technical occupations in electronics and electrical engineering Across the economy 16.3%

Shoe repairers, shoemakers and upholsterers Across the economy 15.2%

Administrative and financial supervisors Across the economy 11.6%

Technical inspectors and regulatory officers Across the economy 10.7%

Administrative services managers Across the economy 9.6%

Legislative and senior managers Across the economy 9.2%

Building maintenance installers, servicers and repairers Across the economy 8.3%

Financial, insurance and related administrative support workers Across the economy 7.7%

Technical occupations in computer and information systems Across the economy 4.8%

Found across at least fourteen of the twenty sectors. In a small establishment several of these are usually one person, or an outside provider.

All 162 occupations →