Tour of M&S Foods

Again, yesterday was another day without a lot physically accomplished in the restaurant, except a few more ceiling tiles painted. I do still hope to be finished the ceiling by Sunday night.

Yesterday afternoon, Alison and I went over to Amherst to take a tour of the M&S Foods distribution center. M&S is the Atlantic Canadian subsidiary of GFS (Gordon Food Services). We have predominantly used Sysco as our major supplier for the last few years, and only use M&S occasionally, but we have noticed that the quality at M&S appears to have been improving over the past couple of years (they have only been in business in the new distribution center in Amherst for about four years). Although we didn't plan to switch suppliers, it's good to keep informed about what's available in the marketplace.

We started with an office tour, and while doing so, ran into a friend from MTA (Rory Faulkner) who is now working in the accounting office there. After the office tour, we spent about an hour walking through the warehouse and looking at various products, which was the most important part of the visit. It quickly became obvious that their inventory system and product quality has come a long way in the past few years. While we didn't find any compelling reasons to switch suppliers just yet, I certainly feel more comfortable using M&S more frequently in the future, based on what I saw of their food quality control systems (especially on produce). I think I will monitor comparison pricing quite carefully in the next few months to see which company has the overall advantage for us in terms of minimizing food costs.