Happy New Year Everybody!
With the exception of some very mild, un wintery weather, not a bad holiday at all. Every year since our inception as an organization we have tried to shut down manufacturing for a Christmas break and we’ve never been able to due to a rush job of some sort. This year we were able to shut down for 2 weeks and get some much needed maintenance done to the equipment with a couple of new additions. We had been testing new lights in our production facilities for the past few months. Over the holidays we replaced all of the old mercury high-bay lights in the manufacturing buildings with new high efficiency T-8 lights. What an unbelievable difference. The light is far better, the shops are way brighter and they use 1/2 the power consumption as the old high bays. Fantastic!
Fortinos Grocery opened yet another beautiful location in Burlington, Ontario in December. Grocery stores just keep getting better and better and this is no exception. In this location, CBSF took another huge step forward and produced all of the belted checkouts and front checkout merchandisers. They turned out great. I’ve attached some pics. Outside of checkouts, we designed/developed a dynamic new bread display, floral display and once again implemented the very successful bulk food department. It’s worth the drive to Burlington to check out this gem. Try the fresh prepared roast beef!
Canada’s Best Merchandising Services Inc. is storming right along. Canadian Tire’s new “Living” strategy (pics attached) proved not only successful for Canadian Tire, but also for our new installation/merchandising group that lead the charge. Since then we have taken on a couple huge new initiatives with Canadian Tire. More to come on that.
The CBMS group is also very proud to have been selected to change out all of the menu boards to digital LED across the country for Tim Hortons. 3,600 locations in less than 12 months. A huge task that certainly highlights our dynamic versatility as partner. Not only did we design and develop and mounting system for the execution, we are producing the product in our own manufacturing facilities and our people are executing the install right across the country. Our teams are local to all major centres in Canada which reduces the cost of execution. Amazing.
In October of 2010, Dollar Tree out of the U.S. bought Dollar Giant which is headquartered in Vancouver B.C. Dollar Tree has enlisted the help of the CBMS team to go into each of its 85 stores across Canada in order to survey the locations and prepare CAD drawings of each location in an “as-built” format. This partnership not only emphasizes our ability to be across the country cost effectively, but highlights our ability to help our partners with design/engineering and fixturing expertise.
Back in November, our partners at The Bay challenged us with producing a shopping basket for them that one of their executives had seen in a store in Paris, France!!! We had to dig a little deeper into the contact list for this one, but managed to find a friend locally that could get us the necessary information to be able to help out our partner. Just prior to Christmas we received the delivery from our partners overseas of 500 baskets along with a custom designed stand. As time was of the essence, our Dave Cross quickly took matters into his own hands and personally delivered the test group to the various locations around Toronto to insure that they were properly received and put to use. I walked a few of the stores in the following days and it sure looked like a winner to me. More to come on that. (Pics attached)
We’re very proud to announce our recent strategic marketing initiative partnered with Maple Leaf Sports and Entertainment. We have six home Leaf games where our company logo is on the boards in front of the Toronto Maple Leafs bench and visitors penalty box, along with a tremendous amount of fantastic digital marketing throughout Air Canada Centre for all home games for the Toronto Maple Leafs and Toronto Raptors. To see it on the boards, tune into the Leaf games on January 10, 14 and 21 as well as March 31st. Or get down to the arena anytime and often. Going to the playoffs!!!!!
Congratulations to the Canadian Juniors for winning bronze. Should’ve won it all, but bronze is okay… I guess. Momentary lapse of reason. That’s what I’m saying. Next Year.
Kids hockey is chugging right along. Junior Morris had a great tournament in North Toronto over the Christmas break but lost a hard fought game in the semi finals to the home team. Great job boys!
Senior Morris and the CBSF house leaguers lost a tough one today on the first day back after Christmas break. Needed that one to get their legs back. Nothing but gold from here on out.
That’s all I have for now. Please visit us at canadasbeststorefixtures.com
