Francorp Client - St. Hubert

Since 1951, St-Hubert has maintained an unwavering commitment: to satisfy our customers by offering an overall restaurant experience centered mainly on barbecue chicken dishes. Our simple recipe has three main ingredients: QSC, which stands for Quality, Service and Cleanliness. We make no compromise: providing the best value is the only way to achieve success. To uphold our excellent quality and satisfy our customers, we at St-Hubert remain true to a long tradition of innovation and keep our finger on the pulse of our customers by being on the cutting edge of new trends.
Millions of customers come to St-Hubert each year for our attentive service, warm decor and, especially, the superior quality of our products prepared the way they like them. Our key ingredients are our employees, franchisees and suppliers, who work together to honour the fundamental commitment which has been the Company's trademark since its very beginning: Customer Satisfaction.
Our purpose is for you to feel at home in our restaurants and to serve you in a friendly and comfortable atmosphere. We offer a choice of products that revolve around chicken in a relaxed environment, coupled with a quick and courteous service. Our modern decors are attractive to customers of all ages: whether you visit our dining rooms, St-Hub Resto-Bars, terraces or children's playrooms, you are sure to be satisfied. St-Hubert owes its success to a particular attention to detail and it all begins with a smile!
In order to meet the demand expressed by a large number of our customers and employees, we have decided, with firm conviction and the cooperation of our partners, to provide you with a smoke-free environment in all the restaurants of our chain.
A number of factors have prompted our company to come to this decision. Mainly the fact that second-hand smoke is a health hazard and there seems to be a well-established social consensus on this matter, not only in Canada but also throughout the world.
We feel that completely prohibiting the use of tobacco in our restaurants is the most efficient and fairest way to protect our employees from second-hand smoke in the work place. The many positive comments received from customers and from the public in general—when we announced our smoke-free environment—confirmed that our decision was well-justified.
Whether in Quebec, Ontario or New Brunswick, we therefore hope you enjoy the opportunity and pleasure of fully savoring the good taste of all our meals!
Approximately a hundred restaurants located in Quebec, Ontario and New Brunswick
7,500 employees
A 3,500 square meter Distribution Center
A state-of-the-art Call Center
A home delivery service
A transactional website

Francorp Client - M&M Meat Shops

By Eric Shackleton, The Canadian Press
TORONTO - M&M Meat Shops, Canada's largest retailer of specialty frozen foods, officially launched Wednesday its first foray into foreign markets, opening five stores in the U.S. Midwest.
"Because of proximity and (similar) demographics, we chose the Midwest" over eight other areas of the U.S. for the launch, president and CEO Gary Decatur said in an interview.
During a series of market tests in the Midwest, he said, consumers, such as busy career-oriented mothers, showed a strong interest in the company's approach to food preparation.
"A taste panel on the products that we offer in Canada ...loved" the offerings, he said.
The Kitchener, Ont.-based chain with 467 outlets across Canada already has five corporately-owned stores operating in the Madison, Wis.-area, opening one in May, two in June and another two in early July.
They are operating under a different name - MyMenu - to indicate that their products go beyond just meat, said Decatur, also president of MyMenu. However, they are similar in format to the company's Canadian outlets.
"We expect to have eight open by the end of the calendar year," all being run by a Madison-based, 30-member team under the direction of the Kitchener-based headquarters, he said.
M&M, he said, plans to franchise these outlets in the next couple of years.
The company, founded in 1980 and whose customers include many so-called "soccer moms," has annual sales of between $465 million and $467 million.
It defines soccer moms as 25-to 54-year old suburban women who juggle careers and families but who like to put healthy meals on the table.
M&M joins several Canadian retailers that have tried to enter the U.S. market but later were forced to retreat because of poor sales and little brand awareness.
These include Loblaw Cos. Ltd., Shoppers Drug Mart Corp. and Canadian Tire Corp. Ltd.
Meanwhile, nearly 300 of Canadian food icon Tim Hortons' more than 2,800 stores are based in the United States.
Decatur said M&M looked to Tim Hortons for inspiration.
As for franchising outlets, he said it "will take anywhere from six months to a year ... to work out any nuances that we may have to modify" before deciding on franchises.
However, if the MyMenu concept pans out in the Madison area, he said, M&M hopes to eventually have 300 to 400 outlets in the Midwest alone, all franchised like in Canada.
"We believe the MyMenu brand and shopping experience has incredible potential for growth internationally," he said.
Decatur said M&M's major competitors in the U.S. are the supermarkets, such as Kroger.
But while supermarkets carry lots of frozen foods, consumers increasingly indicated they like to shop at smaller, neighbourhood grocers, he said.
As in Canada, the M&M outlets in Madison are located in suburban strip malls with easy access, and are designed with orange and blue colours, in formats ranging from 1,200 to 1,400 square feet, with a single aisle and one-on-one service.
M&M, he said, believes its offerings are unique enough and separated enough from the supermarket format that "we'll be successful."
In the past 27 years, M&M has "experienced tremendous success and market penetration in Canada," he said.
"After many market research initiatives, we identified Madison as an area of communities that would benefit from our concept and residents who would find it particularly relevant to their lifestyle.
"Our new line of stores is specially designed for communities in the U.S."
Going forward, said Decatur, "we look at openings in the neighbourhood of 20 stores a year."
M&M is also looking at urban intensification projects as more people abandon suburban living for the downtown core due to high fuel and high land prices.
While most of M&M stores are located in suburban areas, "last fall we opened ... our first truly urban location in Toronto under the name M&M Meat Shops Uptown.
"We changed the decor to be more appealing to urbanites and located it in the base of a condo building."