'Cantastic' smells success cleaning stinky garbage cans

'Cantastic' smells success cleaning stinky garbage cans


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SALT LAKE CITY — A story that started with stinky garbage cans now smells like success for a unique Salt Lake company.

"Cantastic" first started cleaning people's nasty cans a year ago. It was a small startup at the time, with just a few dozen customers. Today, it has several hundred clients, a new truck and it's rolling through more neighborhoods every day.

"Everything's caked on, dried on; it's a mess," said Randy Maxfield, co-owner of Cantastic.

Months earlier, he and his partner Ray Francis were up to their elbows in garbage can gunk, smiling for KSL's cameras through masks covered in brown specs of who knows what.

"As unglamorous as it sounds, we've had a blast — literally having a blast blasting cans," Maxfield said.

Now a year later, Cantastic is still getting sprayed in the face with all sorts of nasty things and still loving every minute of it.

"You know the old saying goes, when one door closes another one opens. Well, the door that opened for us wasn't a door. It was actually a trash can lid," Francis said, as he piloted the green and white can cleaning machine, dubbed "Big Green," through the streets of Salt Lake.

Life was uncertain for Francis and Maxfield a year ago. Their family business of 56 years, Hi-Grade Meats, shut down, putting them and their wives out of work.

"We didn't know where we were going. We'd been in this business for our whole lives, so we didn't have any idea what we were going to do," said Selena Maxfield, Randy Maxfield's wife.

That's when Francis turned to the ksl.com classifieds for ideas. He came across an ad for Blast-A-Can, a former garbage truck that now cleaned garbage cans.


You know the old saying goes, when one door closes another one opens. Well, the door that opened for us wasn't a door. It was actually a trash can lid.

–Ray Francis


"I came home from work and my husband said 'Look at this! This is what we're going to do.' And I said, 'We're going to what?' I thought he was kidding," said his wife, LaVonne Francis.

"Then he called us up and said, 'You guys have got to come see this,'" said Selena Maxfield.

Francis showed them the ad and a video on YouTube, and waited for their response.

"He was really silent because he was afraid we were going to think he was crazy," Maxfield said. "My husband and I looked at each other and we were like, 'Oh, we're in. This is fabulous!' "

With no competition to speak of, the four bought the truck, fixed it up and renamed the business Cantastic.

"We were a little apprehensive of how this was going to work," said Ray Francis. "Nobody had ever heard of such a business."

To get the word out, he and his team canvassed neighborhoods with ads, hanging them on doors and garbage can handles. They mailed out ads and eventually caught the attention of KSL TV.

"It's been retrofitted with a high-pressure, three-headed spray up top, and when the can goes up it rotates with about 195 degree water," Francis said during a demonstration for KSL cameras last July.

Just two weeks after the story aired, Cantastic's business quadrupled. And over the past year, it's doubled again. They now have more than 500 customers.

Francis said business is doing so well they built a second truck, this time from scratch. It's similar to the first truck — blasting away everything from listeria to pet waste — but it has at least one new feature to make life a little easier.

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"The new truck has the ability to take a can inside a totally enclosed area, clean the can inside and out at the same time," said Randy Maxfield.

"Now the driver doesn't even have to get out (of the truck)," Francis said. "We're thrilled."

While Francis and Maxfield run the trucks, their wives handle all other parts of the business back home — from catering to clients to planning the daily routes.

"I dream about it in my sleep, coming up with ideas: What are we going to do with this? But it works. It's fun," Selena Maxfield said.

"One of the funnest things that I enjoy and makes my day is when someone calls up on the phone and they're so excited about our service," LaVonne Francis said. "I often tell them, 'Well, I'm going to take your name down because when we do a commercial, I'm going to need you.'"

The Cantastic Four are doing so well these days the Draper Chamber of Commerce recently gave them an honorary year-long membership. They even got the attention of Draper Mayor Darrell Smith, Utah Senate President Wayne Niederhauser and Lt. Governor Greg Bell, who all helped cut the ribbon for the new truck last June 14.

"We love great companies. We love companies moving in, but it's somehow really exciting to see a homegrown business get started and really mature and have a real great chance for success," Bell said. "It's a good little business and these are dedicated people and we want them to feel our support no matter where they are, no matter what they're doing."

The new truck has been on the road for a week. It's bigger than the first one and the team is still getting used to the extra wheels, larger frame and right-hand steering. But the new truck will allow them to clean more than twice the number of cans and might even help them expand beyond Salt Lake County.

"It's going to be great; we're excited," Francis said. "If you see us on the road, wave."

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