Kory and Liz McGavin’s non-toxic insect baits are entirely produced in the Flathead Valley — from the design to the manufacturing to the printing of the labels.
Reporter Nicole Miller met with the Whitefish couple who are the brains behind McFly, LLC, the maker of Flystop and Stingstop.
Kory McGavin and his wife Liz realized many homes have insect problems after selling real estate in Montana and spending more than two decades working in homes
"We recognized that there was a need for a user-friendly, easy to use, effective non-toxic trap," said Kory and Mcfly, LLC soon went from being just a vision to becoming reality about five years ago.
"To to come up with the perfect ingredients for the trap took a while, but as of last spring, we added a non-toxic bait and we caught 92 flies inside our two traps within about five hours," Kory said. "And we realized we had finally perfected an indoor fly trap that we were very proud of."
The McGavin’s reached out to Gary Byers of Creative Manufacturing in Columbia Falls to design and perfect the tooling necessary to manufacture the traps entirely in Montana.
"The quality and the service, and just the attention to detail that we get manufacturing these here in Montana far outweigh the pennies it would save having these manufactured overseas," Kory explained.
From their labels to the manufacturing of the plastic units, the McGavin’s window traps and patented cones are all made right here in Montana.
"This is a second generation glow in the dark trap, it literally glows like a light bulb at night and will work well for those night time insects," Kory explained while describing one of their products. "And we just manufactured here in Montana our most recent cone that actually injects scent, this particular model has mango."
Mango makes their traps more effective in luring bugs and the McGavin’s trap is also non-toxic to children and pets.
"As a mother of three children it was important that the bait be non-toxic," Liz said. "We have developed a sugar-based bait that is all-natural and safe for use around children and pets."
"The McGavin’s have developed two different models, one for catching yellow-jackets and one for catching flies — and they’re very excited to also be working on a new mosquito trap."
"We’re excited about what we’re catching currently and optimistic about what we’ll be catching in the future," Kory concluded.
The Flystop and Stingstop traps are available at Montana-based stores including Murdoch’s and Town Pump. They can also be found at local Ace Hardware stores, Do It Best and True Value.
The mosquito traps are currently in the testing phase.
