Canadian Vending

Maisonneuve Food Services Inc. of S.t. Laurent (Montreal)
Canada's Fastest Growing Firm of Its Type
Specializes in Feeding University
Students on Campus
If you are young, not long out of University and
"with it," as the cliche goes, you obviously are in a
highly favoured position to do business with people
much the same as yourself. This has most certainly
been the recent experience of twenty-five year old
Gerry Pencer, President of Maisonneuve Food Services
Inc. of St. Laurent, who makes his headquarters at
that firm's new premises at 49~0 Fisher Street in the
western district of Montreal towards Dorval.
To this rapport with young people Gerry credits in
large measure, his firm's outstanding success in gain-
ing Vending accounts with the major Universities in
the Province of Quebec in the Montreal area. Apart
from this there is a large modicum of good service,
good equipment, good product and realistic pricing,
all the ingredients of a quality Vending Operation.
Says Mr. Pencer on the matter of University accounts
-Vending and Manual, "Today, University students
are more and more playing a major part in the admin-
istration of the institutions to which they belong; they
have a big say in affairs which concern them and this
includes such things as feeding. We are all young
people here and we can communicate better with stu-
dents than older persons can; between ourselves and
them there is no generation gap, we understand each
other. Therefore, everything else being equal, they lean
more favourably towards us. However, there is more
to it than just that, from recent first hand knowledge
we know the types of food they like, the portions they
want and what they can afford to pay for them. These
are some of the reasons, the main ones, perhaps, why
we have "made it" with McGill, the University of
Montreal, Chambly Regional School and five High
Schools.
Apart from the extensive University accounts, Mai-
sonneuve also serves Rolls Royce's Canadian Plant,
not far from its own premises, Northern Electric, Dom-
inion Glass, IBM and the Data processing centre of
the Royal Bank, the Queen Elizabeth Hotel and Place
Ville Marie and Steinbergs Ltd., among others. Inter-
estingly enough, Maisonneuve does not operate routes
in the accepted Vending fashion. Instead, it runs a
series of large individual Vending locations - each
more or less self contained with its own static per-
sonnel but receiving support and help from the com-
pany's headquarters and plant at St. Laurent.
Mr. Pencer takes to Vending quite naturally, his
father is a soft drink manufacturer supplying products
under a variety of brand names to the largest grocery
chains in Canada. Whilst a Commerce student at Sir
28
George Williams University in his native Montreal,
Gerry got permission to install a few bulk Venders
dispensing nuts. This was in 1964 and it went so well
that with a friend he made the plunge into Vending
to the extent of operating some 800 bulk machines
the first year. His company still does a large volume
of business in nut vending. Cigarette machines had
been a feature of part of his father's business so they
were added to bulk locations and then came drinks in
Steinberg Limited Supermarkets and Miracle Marts,
then came marriage in 1967 and a contract to feed
Rolls Royce work people which involved not only
Vending but a venture into manual feeding in order
to satisfy customer demands.
Since then it has been rapid expansion all along
the way, with a branching out into many aspects of
comprehensive food management services and related
business, the latest of which is a maintenance and jan-
itorial division. This summer of 1970, Maisonneuve
Food Services Incorporated (the name is new in order
to more fully describe the firm's true nature), employs
some 290 people, uses fifteen vehicles and has sales
running at the rate of $3,000,000.00 gross annually.
It vends, caters, provides food manually, janits and
maintains. What started out six years ago as a part
time bulk Vending Operation, is now a huge diversi-
fied company but still accounting for 40% of its busi-
ness through Vending. It is one of the most rapidly
growing businesses in Quebec and the fastest growing
Vending and Food Services firm in Canada.
Asked if there was anything different about the pro-
duct vended to University students, Mr. Pencer had
this to say. "Young people at Universities get hungry,
therefore, the food they like must be filling and there
must be lots of it. Items such as pizzas and submarine
sandwiches go over extremely well. We sell them out
of cold merchandisers and to heat pizzas and hot items
we provide Micro Wave ovens. Students are strong on
snacks - buy a lot of them. Drink consumption, par-
ticularly that of cold drinks is quite fantastic by nor-
mal vending standards. Apart from providing the
highest quality food and drinks our food portions at
Universities are 50% larger than at most other loca-
tions and, of course, with students in particular, prices
must be reasonable. Locations in order to attract the
University crowd must be attractive and provide a re-
laxing atmosphere with considerable informality. We
pay great attention to this and liaise closly with stu-
dents to achieve these ends. I think it is important to
realize that students are "natural" users of venders,
they accept them readily and take to them far more