Building Bonds

Other milestones in To-Le-Do’s evolution include becoming a licensed distributor for contract caterer Aramark Canada in 1998 – today the company’s largest-volume account – and a licensed processor and distributor for Certified Angus Beef (CAB) in 2001, a relationship Young says has “been a phenomenal partnership,” with sales growth of CAB reaching about 25 per cent annually. That relationship continues to be a success for both partners – To-Le-Do won the CAB International Distributor Marketer of the Year award for 2005 and 2006, and the CAB International Commitment to Integrity Award for 2007 and 2008. During that latter period the company also became HACCP approved, a move Young says helped solidify To-Le-Do’s standards of quality and consistency.

The company’s federally licensed plant processes five different meat types – beef, pork, veal, lamb and bison – with beef comprising 44 per cent of its annual $24 million in sales. Chicken products represent 30 per cent of sales, while CAB sales are $3.5 million annually, or 14 per cent of total sales. Fresh meat includes grind (such as patties and burgers), as well as value-added, hand-cut portion-controlled meats such as steak, stir fry, dice and cutlets, plus tenderized machine-assisted cuts such as chops and bone-in meat. Invoice-ready chilled, frozen and shelf-stable products for distribution range from smoked, cooked and cured meats to cheese, seafood, poultry, juices, desserts and spices, comprising more than 3,000 products. Customers include large-volume contract caterers, government agencies, nursing homes, restaurants, quick-service chains and retailers.

Today, with 55 employees, a 4,000-sq.-ft. processing plant and an 11,000-sq.-ft. distribution facility in downtown Winnipeg, To-Le-Do Foodservice has seen sales double in the past 12 years, with annual sales growth of about five per cent. But, says Young, about a year-and-a-half ago the decision was made to re-focus efforts on efficiencies and grow existing sales relationships, rather than focus on pursuing strictly new business. “We set out to address how we do that – not to be more to more, but to be more to the people that we already have a good relationship with. And to our credit we’ve been able to greatly improve the bottom line with moderate sales growth, and it’s been a successful turnaround for us.”

While Young says “it was a good call and a timely call” given today’s economic climate, it was also an opportunity for To-Le-Do to scrutinize its internal operations and focus on relationships from both sides – from their raw material, finished goods and service suppliers, to their end customers. “I suspected we weren’t in the right place with [our suppliers] because I believe that we didn’t relay our needs as a customer to them properly, and our relationship wasn’t at the level where I needed it to be,” recalls Young. “So the message had to get out that in order for us to survive and our business to be better, we needed our suppliers to take a more energetic, interested position with us. And in terms of bettering our bottom line and being a more stable company, that exercise has really paid the biggest of dividends.”