Groupe Geloso - Passion and dedication spanning seven decades at Groupe Geloso

PASSION AND DEDICATION SPANNING SEVEN DECADES

PASSION AND DEDICATION SPANNING SEVEN DECADES

Ted Farrace, VP of Procurement at Groupe Geloso discusses the values and supply chain strategy behind the fully integrated beverage company’s success.

Founded in 1961, Groupe

Geloso is a family-owned beverage company based in Laval, Canada. The business has a broad portfolio of wellestablished proprietary brands such as Clubtails, Johnny Bootlegger, Poppers and Pepito. It also has partner brands such as Bacardi, Bavaria, Boston Beer and Caribe, to name a few.

roupe Geloso handles everything, including R&D, innovation, production, packaging, marketing, sales and distribution of its products. With a commanding presence in the North American market and developing markets in Europe and Asia, the company is relishing its growth and success which can be traced back to its strong values and consumer-first approach to business that have been in place for almost seventy years.

Here to share insights into the supply chain strategy and company values behind Groupe Geloso’s operations is Ted Farrace, VP of Procurement. Ted oversees Groupe Geloso’s raw materials, packaging and operations to ensure production flows smoothly. Ted explains that Groupe Geloso places great emphasis on the company values that were forged in the 1960s and remain relevant to this day.

“Our values are respect, teamwork, communication, collaboration and integrity,” says Ted. “These are the guiding principles that underpin Groupe Geloso and they have served us since the company launched almost seventy years ago.

“The journey began back in 1957 when one man, Vincenzo Geloso, left Italy with his wife and two children, Nicolangelo and Antonio, to settle in Montreal. Vincenzo’s third son, Aldo, was born in 1960 and he is now the company’s President.

“Vincenzo arrived in Canada with an idea and a plan: to supply grape juice to Italian immigrants who wanted to make their own wine. Eventually, he secured the first permit to make wine in Quebec and that’s where it all began to take shape for Groupe Geloso. Since then we’ve expanded and evolved to become a leading readyto-drink beverages company – although we do still offer some wines as a nod to our historic roots and how we got to where we are today.

So, how has Groupe Geloso maintained its growth and commercial success on its journey so far?

“Partnerships are crucial to our evolution,” begins Ted.

“Every year we achieve double digit growth, always with a focus on developing our proprietary brands. The other element is enhancing our production. We use the latest equipment and technology, and this is a great source of pride for us. Here in Canada we do our own distribution, so we're always looking at the best and most efficient way to deliver but elsewhere, for example in the US, we work with our threetier distributor system, a different route to market but efficiency and effectiveness remain vital.

“The other major element to our evolution as a company is considering the consumer. We develop continuously so the customers always want to know what’s coming up next. At Geloso, innovation is key because it keeps us afloat, refreshes our offering and satisfies our customers in the process. We never sit still!”

Groupe Geloso constantly innovates its existing brand portfolio while also adding new product lines and actively seeking partnerships to keep its offering fresh and consumers coming back for more.

partnerships, such as Bacardi and Boston Beer,” says Ted. “We are presently importing Twisted Tea from the USA and producing Truly Hard Seltzer at our facility in Quebec for the Canadian market. Basically, what we do is we develop and we innovate our current product line, while building new partnerships to innovate their lines as well and take them to new markets.”

The changes to the company’s portfolio have been developed alongside production and packaging innovation, where prioritising quality while keeping costs low has been imperative to maintaining double-digit growth at Groupe Geloso in recent years.

Ted recalls starting at Groupe Geloso almost 15 years ago, when the company had 20-30 people working on the line to bring a product from beginning to end using semi-automatic production methods where most of the work was done manually.

“We have our core proprietary brands which we use as a foundation to build on with

“We’ve gone from producing 100 bottles per minute back when I started, to producing up to 1,000 bottles or cans per minute today,” says Ted. “We’ve developed our production and packaging

lines beyond recognition as we’ve grown, enabling us to produce higher volumes, and more quickly, over the years. We went from running one shift to three shifts, quadrupling our production capacity through innovating our processes and using the latest, high-quality equipment as well.

“Our owners are not afraid to invest in the company and they welcome new ideas or creative suggestions. We are incredibly proud of our process and the fact our products have won more than 100 industry awards speaks volumes. We are also proud to be among the top 80 beverage companies in North America.”

Groupe Geloso’s success with consumers spurred these innovations in its production line, but as Ted explains this needed to be matched with development in the company’s distribution strategy to keep up with the booming market activity.

“We went from having a couple of satellite warehouses where we would bring stock in distribute from there, to now where we work with several 3PL providers and other partners to assist us with these higher distribution demands,” says Ted. “We have a major distribution centre here in Canada and we have developed a drive-through racking system to increase efficiency and volumes so we can work with first in first out packing.

“Distribution in the US has evolved as well. We forged multiple partnerships and built new channels so we can strategically

move our product in a smart way. These collaborations are essential to keeping costs down but also ensuring that our distribution network operates smoothly and effectively.”

Ted’s focus on raw materials, packaging and production at Groupe Geloso means he is heavily involved with optimising these processes and the company’s approach to procurement with sustainability in mind.

“Our partnership with Mitchel Lincoln is invaluable to us because they provide us with high-quality sustainable packaging materials,” says Ted. “The cardboard that we use from them is made from 100 per cent recycled material. They are FSC certified, which means 85 per cent of their recycled material comes from post-consumer materials and 15 per cent comes from post-industrial materials.

“Our partnership with Mitchel Lincoln is invaluable to us because they provide us with high-quality sustainable packaging materials”

“We also keep on working closely with our terrific glass suppliers Ampak to reduce the weight of the glass for our products. This is not always easy because if we have beverages with some pressure, we need to make sure that the glass can sustain the pressure. Ampak produces our glass with new pressing technology that means the glass is distributed evenly, so it is stronger and doesn’t break so easily.

“All our bottles are refillable, up to 10 times, and they are all recyclable at the end of their lifecycle. It is important to us that we collaborate with companies like Ampak

to ensure our products are packaged in the most sustainable way possible.”

Overarching the innovation in production and sustainable strategies for raw materials and packaging at Groupe Geloso are sustained efforts towards supply chain optimisation which form a core component of the company’s operations.

“We plan, produce and distribute strategically,” says Ted. “We look at what we want to achieve to ensure that our production and planning forecasts are in place

Ampak Inc., is one of the world’s leading manufacturers and distributor of Glass, HDPE and PET with over 60 years of valued experience committed to producing high quality bottles, jars and packaging components servicing industries such as food and beverage, pharmaceutical-nutraceutical, industrial, automotive and health and beauty.

Ampak has manufacturing plants and sales offices located across Canada and with the recent acquisition of Circlepak Inc., we are happy to expand our services to the wine sector.

We invite all our customers to be captivated by our esteemed collection of innovative custom designs which delivers an impeccable quality that goes beyond the expectations of every market segment we service as we aim to take you beyond the possibilities of glass.

Our collective partnership is central to everything we do. After all, OUR BUSINESS IS PACKAGING YOUR BUSINESS.TM

Our Manufacturing Facilities Include:

so we can adjust accordingly. Our purchasing and supply chain hinges on having packaging agreements with suppliers to get optimal pricing, but at the same time we bring in only in what is needed.

“What comes in as raw material, we try to use a min-max method, which is easier because with the ingredients, it's not easy to just bring it on time and it's almost impossible because of the packaging sizes. With everything else, we try to keep a considerable safety stock unit to make sure that we're always rolling, but we try to minimise that as well. In both production and finished goods, there's that safety stock to consider. So even though we produce what we need, we always have a bit extra because there's always a surprise order around the corner.

“The other consideration is we have a large range of products. So we have different can or bottle sizes and shapes, so when our planning team get together, they carefully

consider the seismics and setup times. Once we're working on a certain size or container, we stay with that size to finish off and then move onto the next. That way we save our time and a lot of headaches with change overs.

“We also have a staging area to make sure that the production keeps going. In other words, we have a three-day rolling packaging area to keep the flow steady without interruption.

“A reliable supply chain is crucial to us as it creates synergies, enables us to be agile and helps us bring down operating expenses – making us more profitable. But optimisation and efficiencies are not only coming out of our procurement, planning or production departments. It starts at the very beginning when we conceive a product, when we create it, market it and ultimately bring it to the shelves for our customers. We all work together to make sure that everything that we do is done the right way.”

“Ampak produces our glass with new pressing technology that means the glass is distributed evenly, so it is stronger and doesn’t break so easily”

But it is not only internal collaboration that is important at Groupe Geloso, external partnerships are also essential to the company’s operations and success, Ted explains.

“Strong partnerships are key and the goal I set myself is I want 75 per cent of partners to stay with me for the long run,” says Ted. “Honesty and strong communication are fundamental to this. Whether this is related to potential delays or if a partner thinks we could make savings if we changed how we operate, these are the types of things I want to trust my partners to bring to the table. The other

25 per cent of partners I keep an open mind about alternatives, but in a business like ours it’s that 75 per cent – those staple, stable partners – who are the ones you work together with so you both thrive and benefit from the arrangement.”

Wrapping up our discussion, Ted circles back to how Groupe Geloso is a family-owned business that takes great pride in its history.

“It's a business that started over 65 years ago, but they still have the same values they had since day one. If you speak to people that worked here in the past,

they've always been running the company in the same way.

“The family business is in its second generation of leaders. Three brothers – Nicolangelo, Antonio and Aldo Geloso – have kept the company in Quebec and have a great loyalty to the generations of families who have worked and assisted in the growth of the company. They can go downstairs onto the production line, they know everybody. Groupe Geloso is a great company to work for and I’m proud to be part of it.”

Added Value

For further information on Groupe Geloso, visit groupegeloso.com.

Work-life balance

Ted believes in the importance of keeping a healthy work-life balance. When he’s not spending quality time with friends or family, Ted loves to read biographies – especially about people that overcome adversity or go from nowhere to somewhere. Ted recently started a new hobby, riding motorcycles, which he pursues in his spare time and when the weather permits.

Connect with Ted Farrace