From Huddle Today
Some of the signature dishes of Canada’s largest breakfast restaurant chain will hit grocery store shelves across Canada, thanks to a partnership with a major food supplier.
Franchises Cora Inc., the parent company of the Cora restaurant chain, and Best Brands, the retail division of Groupe St-Hubert, announced an agreement to manufacture, distribute and sell Cora-branded breakfast foods at grocery stores that Group St-Hubert distributes to.
Cora breakfast products are expected to hit the shelves in grocery stores across Canada by January 2022. Groupe St-Hubert spokesperson Josée Vaillancourt said Cora’s well-recognized brand will be a boon for sales, once available at grocery stores.
“It’s interesting for a company to make that kind of move. People know the brand. When you launch a product at grocery stores and people don’t know the brand, it’s going to be harder for you. The fact that people know about Cora is going to help for sure,” said Vaillancourt in a call with Huddle.
“People are going to say, ‘I’m going to buy that product because I like it when I have it at the restaurant.’ It’s a positive for you when customers at your restaurant see you at the grocery store.”
A September 29 news release stated that Cora-branded products will get a boost from Best Brands’ development, production distribution and marketing reach.
Vaillancourt was unable to disclose the names of the grocery stores that will sell Cora-branded products, noting Best Brand contacts grocery stores to see who will sell them – an ongoing process.
“At the moment, I don’t have that information,” she noted.
Nicholas Tsouflidis, Franchises Cora Inc. president, said the expansion into grocery stores is a “string to our bow,” complementing offerings in the popular Cora restaurants and online sales.
“It was important to join forces with a food distribution network firmly established across the country,” he added.
In the release founder Cora Tsouflidou stressed the importance of breakfast in a release, saying, “This is perfectly in line with the emission we set for ourselves from the start.”
In addition to its Best Brands distribution network, Groupe St-Hubert, headquartered in Quebec, owns 125 rotisserie restaurants in New Brunswick, Quebec and Ontario serving 28 million meals a year.
St-Hubert employs about 800 people. Vaillancourt said that number jumps to around 6,000 people when counting the number of employees of franchisees of the St-Hubert brand. St-Hubert has been selling products in groceries for more than five decades and created its retail division in 2007. Its restaurants added online sales in 2003, which were upgraded in 2020, with a new mobile app.
Headquartered in Sainte-Thérèse, Quebec, Franchises Cora Inc. owns and operates 130 franchised restaurants across Canada under the Cora Breakfast & Lunch, Cora and Cora brands – and has been in business for 34 years.
Sam Macdonald is a reporter with Huddle, an Acadia Broadcasting content partner.
