Created: 4/29/2009 4:51:31 PM 
Burlington, NC -- The recipe for Sue Catherine's greatest kitchen invention included aggravation and necessity.
"I would get so frustrated because lunches wouldn't fit, and so I thought, 'Why not, I'll just start making my own,'" she said.
Catherine created the CaddySac in 2007. She based it on size on the size water bottles and plastic containers that wouldn't fit in a traditional lunch box.
When her three kids took the bags to school, they came home with requests.
"My kids came home and they told me that friends and mothers and teachers all asked where they got it," she said.
Catherine turned her mudroom into a workshop, then expanded into the garden shed behind her house.
She and her sister-in-law became business partners.
She set up an office at the Nussbaum Center for Entrepreneurship, where she receives assistance with marketing and graphics.
By the fall of 2007, the production was too much for Catherine to handle alone.
"I couldn't keep up with the volume, but I also knew that a real professional company was going to have much better quality than I would," she said.
Catherine turned to manufacturers. She worked with two different places, but soon the volume grew and so did the need to find a manufacturer that could handle the load.
She insisted the work stay local.
"To go so far away, I just wouldn't like it and i would feel better about employing USA or North Carolinians."
Now, all CaddySac products are produced by Fuller Specialty Company in Burlington.
"This helps to bring back our numbers and be able to bring products back and our niche markets are really sort of our key right now to us keeping busy," said Mark Fuller, owner of the company.
Like Catherine's business, his is home-grown too. Fuller's grandmother started the company in her home in 1944.
The company has seen a decrease in business during the last decade.
Ida Haithcock was one of several employees temporarily laid-off last year. The company's increased workload from CaddySac meant Haithcock could come back to work.
"I'm really thankful to be called back," she said.
Stores started selling CaddySac items in July 2008.
The CaddySac brand now includes more than 10 products. More than 50 stores in 15 states sell the items, including as far away as Maine.
Catherine continues to add products. A bedding line could be next.
"We use everything that we make and I think that that helps with fine tuning it too and it also helps us know what we need," she said.
Catherine wants schools to sell CaddySac products as fundraisers, with a percentage of the sales going back to the schools.
For more information about CaddySac, click here.
WFMY News 2/Justin Quesinberry
