The following year Brodie settled in Smiths Falls. Upon his arrival he began a friendship with brothers Frank, Charles, and William Frost and Alexander Wood of the Frost and Wood Company. They were known worldwide as manufacturers of farm implements and were the largest employers in town.

In 1879, a 27-year-old Robert Brodie and his business partner, Robert Harvie, founded the Standard Fertilizer and Chemical Company Limited. News of the state-of-the-art business made it into Toronto’s The Globe newspaper. The factory was built on the west side of Quarry (later Abbott) Street on the north side of the Rideau River. The location afforded incredible shipping facilities which contributed to over 30 years of operation. The company manufactured superphosphates, creating sulfuric acid from brimstone imported from Sicily and Japan, and then mixing the sulphuric acid with finely ground apatite, to produce commercial fertilizer. Brodie’s factory manufactured large quantities of liquid acid phosphate, dry acid phosphate for baking powders and phosphate of soda. There was also a complete laboratory for analysing and testing materials. The firm had virtually no competition in Ontario and was so successful that it was “not able to supply more than one tenth of the orders received” according to the Rideau Record in 1888.

After the factory was abandoned, it was taken over by Frey Industries in 1948, with a staff of two. The company expanded to employ 41 workers by 1956. They worked mainly on defence contracts, manufacturing marine markers, metal containers, hardware, and ammunition boxes for the military. The company moved out in 1959. The building is now the headquarters of the local Royal Canadian Air Force Association.