Tim Hortons says creation of a REIT wouldn’t create value for company

By David Friend, The Canadian Press - Wednesday, May 8, 2013 at 5:40 PM - 0 Comments

OAKVILLE, Ont. – Tim Hortons Inc. (TSX:THI) has finally found a new leader nearly two years after the abrupt exit of its former CEO, but it doesn’t plan to make any sweeping changes in the short term, despite recent calls from an investor.

The company, which reported weaker earnings on Wednesday, said it won’t spin off of its real estate holdings because it “would not create significant value” for the company.

Chief financial officer Cynthia Devine told analysts on a conference call the company has examined the possibility of a real estate trust.

“Our conclusion is that the establishment of a REIT structure would not create significant value for a number of reasons,” she said.

Continue…

Tim Hortons plans renos, refreshed drive-thrus as economy pressures sales growth

By The Canadian Press - Thursday, February 21, 2013 at 6:58 PM - 0 Comments

TORONTO – Tim Hortons hopes a refreshed look for many of its stores and a new leader atop its executive team this summer will boost the brand as it endures an underwhelming economy and heavy competition from other coffee restaurants.

On Thursday, the Oakville, Ont.-based company delivered a cautious outlook for the year and fourth-quarter results which showed notably weaker transaction growth at stores that have been open for more than a year.

“A challenging economic climate and the resulting intensified environment continues to pose challenges for everyone in our industry,” said Paul House, interim chief executive in a conference call with analysts.

“In uncertain times, consumers can become more hesitant to spend money and in the restaurant sector we continue to see competitors relying more heavily than usual on promotions and discounts, and we too have been somewhat more promotional in a low-growth environment.”

The coffee, doughnut and fast food company plans to renovate about 300 of its franchised stores this year, or roughly double the amount it has most other years. Each store is refreshed about once a decade, the company said.

Some stores will also have their drive-thru lines revamped to process more vehicle traffic in less time.

For 2013, the company is targeting diluted earnings per share in a range of $2.87 to $2.97. Same-store sales growth, a key industry metric of locations open for at least a year, is targeted at two to four per cent in Canada and three to five per cent in the United States.

Tim Hortons also announced it would increase its quarterly dividend by 23.8 per cent. Starting with the March payout, the quarterly dividend will rise to 26 cents per share.

The company plans to buy back up to $250 million of its shares, a move that tends to push up per share earnings over time.

“We expect to continue to grow the chain in a healthy manner despite the current headwinds,” said chief financial officer Cynthia Devine.

“We have strategies in place designed to expand and enhance our system, strengthen our relationship with our guests and deliver high-quality, solid value menu items.”

In its outlook, Tim Hortons (TSX:THI) did not account for a $9-million charge it expects to take in the first quarter, and other expenses it will face when ushering in a new CEO this year, it said.

“The board has made significant progress in its external CEO search,” the company said in a release.

“Although the process is not yet complete, the board currently anticipates appointing a new CEO by early summer.”

House has held the top position at Tim Hortons since May 2011 when Don Schroeder made a surprise exit from the CEO position.

In the fourth quarter, net income dropped 2.5 per cent to $100.3 million or 65 cents per share. That compared with $103 million or 65 cents per share a year earlier.

Average analyst expectations had been for earnings of 72 cents per share, according to a survey by Thomson Reuters.

Revenue for the three months ended Dec. 31 was up 4.1 per cent at $811.6 million, with much of the increase tied to higher-priced products like the introduction of its panini sandwiches and single-serve Tassimo coffee line.

House said both products contributed “significantly” to the sales results in the period, though when analysts pressed him for specifics, he declined to disclose the details.

“We won’t qualify that,” he said of the new product sales.

But higher priced items certainly were a major contributor during the period, since overall sale-store sales growth showed that customers were making fewer transactions in the period.

Same-store sales growth was halved from a year earlier growing at 2.6 per cent from 5.5 per cent at the same time last year.

The company said the profit was five cents per share lower than it would have been without $9 million of reorganization expenses recorded in the quarter tied to both termination costs and professional fees.

Part of the costs were also related to the hunt for a replacement for House, who held the interim CEO job for nearly two years.

For the full year, Tim Hortons net income was up 5.2 per cent to $402.9 million or $2.59 per share — below the company’s 2012 guidance.

Shares of Tim Hortons fell 2.95 per cent, or $1.50, to close at $49.30 Thursday on the Toronto Stock Exchange.

Why Tim Hortons can’t rrroll into the United States

By James Cowan - Wednesday, February 20, 2013 at 11:31 AM - 0 Comments

This is a big week for Tim Hortons. We’ve entered “RRRoll Up the Rim to Win” season and the company will unveil its 2012 year-end results on Feb. 21. And while the company’s success continues to rrroll ahead—revenue increased 10.3% in its last quarter alone—it is also on the rim of some serious trouble.

As Jeff Beer recently wrote, analysts are worried Tim Hortons has reached its saturation point in its domestic market. There were 3,365 Hortons in Canada as of Sept. 30, 2012; the company has consistently said there’s room for about 4,000 in total. With 44 new ones opening in the last quarter alone, they may soon need to open donut shops inside of donut shops to keep growing.

Which is why international expansion is so important for Canada’s premier donut depot. The company has been without a permanent CEO since May 2011, when Don Schroeder unexpectedly left the company. Most assume it’s searching for a replacement with American experience to help it navigate a U.S. expansion. Finding the right person has proven difficult; acting chief Paul House indicated in an interview last year that he might still be around at the end of 2013.

The company clearly needs help developing a strategy in the U.S. market. Missteps in the New England region forced it to close 36 stores in 2010. American growth continues to lag, with just 22 new restaurants opening last quarter, half as many as on the other side of the border.

Regardless of who next leads Tim Hortons, betting on an American expansion to maintain growth seems unwise. It took 27 years for Tim Hortons to open its first 500 outlets. Over that time, the brand built an emotional connection with Canadians, supporting charities, backing amateur hockey teams and serving as the default community centre for many small towns. Perhaps most importantly, the brand was unabashedly patriotic, from its hockey rink-laden advertising to its support of Canadian troops in Afghanistan. Underneath the folksy, homespun image is a finely calibrated brand identity, one that’s earned notice from both Ad Age magazine and the Reputation Institute. By the time the company began expanding aggressively in the mid-nineties, even if you didn’t love Tim Hortons, you likely had a hockey buddy, coworker or far-flung relative willing to drive miles for a double-double.

But here’s the fundamental problem for Tim Hortons. Its current brand identity—particularly the Canuck iconography—doesn’t help it in the United States. Without the brand identity, Tim Hortons is just another donut shop. America’s got plenty of those already.

Double double trouble? Students petition for better Tim Hortons access

By Josh Dehaas - Tuesday, February 12, 2013 at 2:00 PM - 0 Comments

After polling his peers last fall, Adam Oran, who represents Human Kinetics students for the University of Windsor Student Alliance, knew which policy to pursue. He started a Facebook page called “Lets Get a Timmies in HK,” referring to their building, a 15-minute walk from the nearest Tim Hortons coffee outlet.

Within a week, 150 people liked the page; by February, 390 had joined. Talks with campus officials are now under way, says Oran. When constituents stop to ask how their Tim’s is coming, he’s proud to report that management has been receptive.

Oran wasn’t the first to make such a petition. A Facebook page demanding a better Tim Hortons for Mount Royal University in Calgary in 2010 noted long lines and lack of variety at the campus kiosk. The page got more than 700 likes by the time Brent Mann, general manager for the school’s food-service provider, Sodexo, posed for photos for the school newspaper with a shovel in hand, turning the sod on the bigger and better location. Continue…

An extra-large sized order of generosity

By Ryan Mallough - Wednesday, January 16, 2013 at 6:50 AM - 0 Comments

On a brisk December morning, as customers at a Tim Hortons drive-through in southeast Winnipeg waited to pay for their orders, a strange thing happened: the driver in the car ahead of them picked up their tab. That simple act of generosity wasn’t unheard of in the Prairie city. Last fall, Maclean’s revealed that customers at various coffee shops across the city were being surprised by random acts of coffee charity—a story that quickly went viral and was picked up by news sites worldwide.

Only this time, the generosity became infectious. Car after car, customers kept pouring it forward, and what might normally involve one or two free beverages became a three-hour phenomenon. By the time it was over, 228 patrons had paid for a stranger’s double-double or Timbits.

The seemingly endless flow of freebies initially caught restaurant staff off-guard. Then, as the chain grew longer, a drive-through manager kept shouting out random numbers as the tally reached into the dozens, then hundreds. “This sort of thing happens quite frequently where one of our guests will buy a coffee for another,” says Tim Hortons spokesperson Michelle Robichaud. “But we’ve never seen something of this magnitude.”

It’s still not entirely clear why this wave of generosity has caught on so strongly in Winnipeg, though, as Maclean’s did point out in our original story, the province enjoys the nickname “Friendly Manitoba.”

Of course, all good things must come to an end. Attempts were made by local reporters to figure out the identity of customer number 229—the individual who finally broke the chain. All that’s known is that he took off with four cups of coffee—paid for by the person in front of him—and left the person behind him to pick up his or her own three-coffee tab.

Recipe for viral video: Tim Hortons, Elton John, and ungrumpy old men

By David Newland - Thursday, January 10, 2013 at 6:00 PM - 0 Comments

What makes a great viral video? Wouldn’t a million social marketers love to know. But if Old men singing at Tim Horton’s (sic) isn’t an example of a sure-fire hit, I don’t know what is.

Now, you may be wondering why a dozen or so men of retirement age, singing Can You Feel The Love Tonight in a coffee shop in Oakville, Ont., filmed by an amateur on a cellphone, has the makings of a Canadian web sensation. (I’m sure you’re wondering, if you are one of the guys in the video.)

Consider it an object lesson in how the web works in the age of social media. Here’s what makes this video a sensation in the making:

1. Location. As in the fast food business, so in the viral video business: the secret to success is location, location, location. If you’re looking to tug the heartstrings of Canadians, start someplace that has emotional resonance—real, or marketed, it doesn’t matter much, as long as it’s Tim Hortons. (Can you picture this at KFC?)

2. Story. Content is king, goes an old online marketing  expression (is that a contradiction in terms?). In this case, the “content” is a heartwarming little tale about a talented bunch of ungrumpy old men. Instead of shaking their fists at kids playing road hockey, or running for the Conservative party, these guys sing. What a novel idea. We can sell that.

3. Familiarity. You know these fellows. You’ve seen them at your local Tim Hortons, endlessly taking up tables in the corner and talking baseball/convertbiles/politics, or whatever. Sober, avuncular, maybe a bit corny, churchy, and straight-seeming. It all works, because…

4. Surprise! As above, this is a scene we’ve all seen before—except the part where a bunch of bucket-listers break into a torch song by the world’s most famous gay guy, from a beloved Disney family musical, and absolutely nail it.

5. Optimism. The notion that a bunch of older gentlemen somewhere, sometimes just break out into song together hearkens to a (probably imaginary) simpler time, like the Fifties. As such, the video offers an antidote to the often dull, depressing suburban world many of us live in. Some call this stuff “glurge,” and depending on your taste it may or may not work for you. But trust me, they eat it up in internetland.

6. Authenticity. The first thing I did on investigating this video was to contact the guy who made it, to make sure he wasn’t in the marketing department at Tim Hortons. He’s not, at least not unless he’s a compulsive liar. He’s an ordinary dude named Danfi Parker, a biblical studies student and soccer player. He just wandered into a Tim’s one night, saw something cool go down, shot it, and shared it. You can’t imitate that. (Though Tim Hortons would be wise to capitalize on it.)

7. Shareability. Danfi Parker tried to post the video to Facebook right after he shot it on Monday night, just to show his friends. The file was too big, so he put it on YouTube. I saw it on Facebook a few days later, at which point it had more than a thousand views. I watched it, gave it a thumbs-up, and sent a link to my dad. (A hundred guys are sending it to their dads right now.) I also sent it to my friends, by email, my “friends” by Facebook, and my “followers” by Twitter. So did a lot of people. Cha-ching.

8. Quality. Spontaneous as it may be, quality is still at the heart of this video. Any old group of geezers wheezing any old song couldn’t pull this off. These guys are good. They’re a real group, The Entertainers. They do gigs. And they’re doing a great rendition of a nice arrangement of a superbly written, popular, familiar song from a much-loved production.

9.  Validation. Ironically enough, the secret ingredient that makes a feel-good organic grassroots video truly viral, is major media support. And that’s where this article becomes a bit of a self-fulfilling prophecy: your friendly neighbourhood freelancer trolling the web for stories feels the tug at his heartstrings, makes a quick phone call to the video’s author, cobbles together a pitch to his editor, taps away at the keyboard for a few hours, and whammo… we’re on the home page, baby, watching the clicks roll in.

Danfi Parker may not be able to cash in on his efforts, and I bet The Entertainers still paid for their coffees, but this stuff is gold for online media outlets. Not to mention a certain doughtnut chain. And, um, me.

And there you have it: nine quick steps to Internet success. Somebody book that band, will you? Or at least buy them a box of Timbits. My conscience is killing me.

The loneliness of a fast-food franchise

By Tamsin McMahon - Wednesday, November 21, 2012 at 8:20 AM - 0 Comments

Simon Hayter

Analysts were understandably skeptical this month when Tim Hortons interim CEO Paul House blamed the company’s disappointing third-quarter financial results partly on “capacity issues” at some of its restaurants. Canada’s iconic coffee-and-doughnut chain reported that it’s on track to miss its annual growth target in part because lineups at some of its stores were simply too long. “In some ways, it is not good news, but in other ways, it is good news in the sense that . . . we’ve got lots of business,” House told a conference call last week.

It’s a remarkably positive spin on what has been an off year for the ubiquitous coffee chain. Sales growth at existing Tim Hortons stores has been below two per cent for the past two quarters, while growth of 2.3 per cent at U.S. stores fell well below its target of five per cent. What growth the company has seen has been from customers spending more at each visit, even as traffic to its stores declined. The report wasn’t all bad news. The chain did manage a $105.7-million profit for the quarter, up two per cent from a year ago. Continue…

Canada’s 10 most trusted brands

By Blog of Lists - Tuesday, August 14, 2012 at 9:40 AM - 0 Comments

abdallah/Flickr

Dollars (at least in Canadian Tire money) to doughnuts, these companies enjoy the strongest reputations among Canadian consumers:*

1. Jean Coutu Group (pharmacies)

2. Tim Hortons

3. Shoppers Drug Mart

4. WestJet

5. Research In Motion

6. Bombardier

7. Yellow Pages

8. Alimentation Couche-Tard (convenience stores)

9. Canadian Tire

10. Saputo

*From a survey of consumer attitudes toward companies based on, among other things, their corporate citizenship, leadership, performance, and products and services.
Source: Canadian Business (2011)

Have you ever wondered which cities have the most bars, smokers, absentee workers and people searching for love? What about how Canada compares to the world in terms of the size of its military, the size of our houses and the number of cars we own? The nswers to all those questions, and many more, can be found in the first ever Maclean’s Book of Lists.

Buy your copy of the Maclean’s Book of Lists at the newsstand or order online now.

5 myths about Tim Hortons

By Blog of Lists - Monday, July 23, 2012 at 4:40 PM - 0 Comments

keepitsurreal/Flickr

1. The coffee has additives like nicotine to make it more addictive. This myth is so prevalent that the company’s website tackles it head-on: “Tim Hortons would like to clearly state that there is absolutely NO nicotine or MSG in our coffee.”

2. A muffin is healthier than a sugary doughnut. Guess again. Compared to a blueberry muffin, the decadent-sounding double chocolate doughnut has 1 g less fat (10 g) and just 75 per cent of the calories (250 kcals).

3. Tim Hortons customers vote Conservative. Not so. In 2010 the Globe and Mail analyzed the average number of Tim Hortons per riding. The NDP and Liberals tied for the most, with 11, while Tory ridings trailed with an average number of nine outlets.

4. The city with the most Tim Hortons per capita is Moncton. (Or is it Barrie? Ste. Catharines St. Catharines?) Widely believed, but inaccurate. An analysis by the Martin Prosperity Institute in 2011 found the city with the most Timmies for the population is Port Hope, Ont.

5. “Always Fresh.” Well, sort of. The doughnuts are partially baked at a central facility, “flash-frozen,” then trucked across the country to be reheated in-store. One executive has explained the freezing process “seals in the freshness.”

Source: Tim Hortons, Martin Prosperity Institute, news reports

Have you ever wondered which cities have the most bars, smokers, absentee workers and people searching for love? What about how Canada compares to the world in terms of the size of its military, the size of our houses and the number of cars we own? The nswers to all those questions, and many more, can be found in the first ever Maclean’s Book of Lists.

Buy your copy of the Maclean’s Book of Lists at the newsstand or order online now.

Hells Angels at Tim’s, and a tall temperature tale

By Mark Richardson - Monday, July 16, 2012 at 7:09 AM - 0 Comments

Thunder Bay, Ontario – Days 32 and 33

Trans-Canada distance: 4,112 km

Actual distance driven: 10,453 km

Terry Fox memorial

NOW:  (Thunder Bay) Tristan and I stopped at the memorial to Terry Fox that’s just east of town. We came here last year in an RV and the statue was no less impressive this summer and just as inspiring.

More than $600 million has been raised to combat cancer by Terry Fox runs since his death in 1980. The idea inspires many others to push their limits across Canada, including a couple of pairs of cyclists I met in Newfoundland. But the idea is also running its fund-raising course: this recent Maclean’s article tells about the glut of people cycling across the country and the hard time they have to get any attention.

Hirotaka Suzuki

And then there’s Hirotaka Suzuki, a 27-year-old chemical engineer from Japan who’s walking from Vancouver to Toronto just, well, because. “If this journey is a success, I won’t get any money, but I will get to Toronto,” he told me in uncertain English. After Toronto, he’d like to go to the Caribbean for the winter, or maybe South America, just to see what’s there.

An OPP cruiser pulled up as I was talking with Hirotaka beside the road, about 20 km east of Nipigon. The cop just wanted to check everything was OK. When I told him about Hirotaka’s long walk, the officer laughed good-naturedly: “I know – he’s crazy!”

The cop was probably happy he hadn’t been called over to Thunder Bay, where half-a-dozen cruisers and blacked-out SUVs were setting up shop on the highway beneath the Terry Fox memorial when we passed by later.

Some Hell's Angels at the local Tim's

They were almost certainly there to intercept a small group of about a dozen Hell’s Angels who we met in Nipigon, all of us ordering coffee and iced lemonades and sandwiches at the local Tim Hortons.

Far be it for me to tell the cops how to go about their business, but if they’d wanted to be absolutely certain of stopping the Angels as they headed west, they could have put a roadblock at Shuniah, a short distance east along the Trans-Canada Highway. This is where Terry Fox was forced to end his Marathon of Hope, and as best I can tell from any maps, the 2.8 kilometres of TCH between Nelson Road and the road down to Sleeping Giant provincial park is the only point in Canada where there is no alternative road. If you want to cross the country, you have no choice but to drive on that stretch of highway.

THEN: (Neys) There was no road anywhere near the current Trans-Canada in World War II, although the gravel highway between Hearst and Geraldton, roughly 100 km to the north, was constructed in 1943. This provided the final link between east and west; once it was complete, it was possible to drive across Canada without going into the United States.

Brig. Alex Macfarlane and his friend Ken MacGillivray were the first people to make the successful crossing, in 1946, and Macfarlane earned the Todd Medal for doing so. I’ll tell more about them tomorrow, but here’s an introduction.

These rocks in the shape of a star formed a flagpole base.

This isolation made the area an excellent place for holding prisoners of war, and the provincial park at Neys is built on an old POW camp site. There’s very little to show that up to 500 Germans were once incarcerated here, except for a few concrete foundations in the woods and a star of rocks where the flagpole used to stand.

There were escape attempts, but if they weren’t caught, the prisoners would always return after a day or so, bitten by blackflies and exhausted from getting lost in the bush. One German officer even tried to skate across Lake Superior on boot blades fashioned from an old bedstead, but he soon returned like the others. Camp life was fairly relaxed, after all, and the prisoners were well taken care of. Most escape attempts happened once the war was over and the Germans didn’t want to be returned to Europe. Some even settled later in the area.

The curator at Neys provincial park, Teddy Dong, is looking for people who may have memories of the camp to record a verbal history. If you can help, send him a note at teddy.dong@rogers.com.

Coldest in Canada?

SOMETHING DIFFERENT … (White River) This town used to hold the record for the coldest temperature ever recorded in Canada: 72-below Fahrenheit in 1935. That’s 58-below in Celcius, which is way too cold to think about.

The super-frozen temperature was spotted by 14-year-old Walter Spadoni, when he saw the reading on the thermometer at Rumsey’s General Store while on his way to school. School was cancelled that day.

Walter’s still in White River and I found him at the Home Hardware that his dad founded as a general store in 1905. “Winter’s not what it used to be – it’s a lot warmer,” he told me. “Our roads weren’t plowed, either, but we didn’t have cars, so it didn’t matter.” White River was a bustling railway town but didn’t get a road into the community until 1960, when Walter says he bought himself a Chevrolet to reach the outside world.

Walter Spadoni today

But town residents now question the lowest-temperature claim. “It’s an urban legend,” says Deb Duplassie. “It was cold enough to break the thermometer, and the mercury dropped to the bottom. We get our share of minus-30s and minus-40s, when it’s cold enough to freeze your nose hairs, but who knows what the temperature really was that day?”

And even if it were true, a reliable temperature was recorded of minus-81 Fahrenheit (minus-62.8 C) in the Yukon in 1947, disallowing the title. But White River doesn’t need it. Now it promotes itself as the birthplace of Winnie the Pooh – the railway stop where a bear cub was bought in 1914, named Winnie after Winnipeg, and taken to the London Zoo to become an inspiration for children’s author A.A. Milne and his son Robin. Which apparently is a surprise to most visitors, who assume Winnie the Pooh was created by Walt Disney.

SOMETHING FROM TRISTAN, 12 (Ouimet Canyon) Today was the most fun out of all the days so far because for the first time I actually got a good night’s sleep.

Riding the wire

Also, we went zip-lining, which was just about the most fun thing I’ve done in my life –  it wasn’t scary at all. It was actually quite nice because there was a light breeze on your face and the beautiful scenery of the canyon.

Now we get to sleep in a Best Western with two separate rooms, one for just watching TV and relaxing and the other for sleeping and doing even more relaxing.

Overall, today was the best day of the trip and I don’t think that anywhere else can beat it, so good luck anyone who is up for the challenge.

Tim Hortons creates double-double lanes to combat ‘drive-through rage’

By Lyndsie Bourgnon - Tuesday, June 26, 2012 at 8:20 PM - 0 Comments

Photograph by Andrew Tolson

The never-ending morning drive-through line at Tim Hortons has become a familiar sight, and frustration, in Canada. Caffeine-starved customers have even been known to experience “drive-through rage” at Timmies—in March of this year, a man from Grande Prairie, Alta., cut in line and allegedly brandished a handgun at the riled customer behind him. Drive-throughs are meant to be quicker and more convenient than parking and going inside, but the more popular they are, the slower they get.

Tim Hortons thinks it may have a solution. During a quarterly conference call in May, it announced that it plans to double up single-lane drive-throughs and install second speaker boxes to ease congestion. Those two lanes would eventually merge again at the pickup window. A second cashier will also be added. These so-called “double-order station drive-throughs” have been tested at Tim Hortons in communities across the country, including Fort McMurray, Alta., and Hamilton. (The company even met with Saskatoon city council to discuss the lanes and to ease concerns about drive-through traffic safety in the city.) Alexandra Cygal, a company spokesperson, says it will soon be rolling out the lanes across the country, and that any outlets built from 2012 onwards will have a double-order station drive-through. “By expanding the drive-throughs, we are not only able to bring more cars into the drive-through from parking lots and streets, but we are also able to serve our guests more efficiently, reducing wait times,” she said in a statement.

Tim Hortons is far from the first chain to try to tackle the drive-through dilemma. For years, the restaurant and retail industry has been studying the science of how lines operate, inside and outside stores. McDonald’s was the first to introduce electronic boards that display orders as they’re taken to limit confusion and potential delays. It also experimented in 2006 with using a call centre based in Hawaii to remotely take orders from drive-throughs across the country—cutting costs and freeing store workers to focus on making the food. But that didn’t catch on.

According to QSR, a trade journal for fast-food and casual dining restaurants, there are four factors that make a good drive-through: menu board appearance, speaker clarity, speed and accuracy. But HyperActive Technologies, a Pittsburgh-based restaurant software firm, has found that what matters most for consumers is speed and accuracy. Gad Allon, a professor at Northwestern University in Chicago, co-wrote a study on drive-through customers and what wait times mean for their purchasing power. “Every seven seconds of improvement amounts to an average gain of one per cent of market share [for the company].”

Continue…

Big Food companies rush to rejig recipes

By Chris Sorensen - Wednesday, May 9, 2012 at 4:27 PM - 0 Comments

Nati Harnik/AP Photo

Jenna Marie Wakani

With their soft, mashed potato insides and crispy exteriors stamped in the shape of a happy face, McCain Foods’ frozen Smiles are marketed as a fun-to-eat children’s snack. They’re not supposed to explode. And yet, that’s what happened inside the Canadian food giant’s laboratory in Florenceville-Bristol, N.B., as researchers attempted to “reformulate” the Smile’s long list of unpronounceable ingredients, part of a company-wide strategy to make its packaged foods more natural and wholesome.

Tony Locke, McCain’s director of product development, says the trouble began while trying to ditch mono- and di-glycerides, emulsifiers that help retain moisture in some packaged foods. Emboldened by previous success with frozen pizza pockets, Locke’s team added a mixture of yeast, wheat gluten and flaxseed to the Smiles. “It was working very well in the lab,” says Locke, referring to what was the 40th attempt to rejig the recipe. “But then when we went to scale it up, we actually had these little Smiles going down the line in the plant and coming out of the fryer and exploding. They would literally come out of the oil and burst.”

And that, in the form of a combustible little potato snack, is the huge and complex challenge faced by food companies as consumers increasingly demand meals that are not only healthier, but more “natural” and therefore, it’s reasoned, better for you. With the public spooked by everything from processed foods (too much salt, too many additives) to hormone-raised beef, food producers are suddenly bending over backwards to portray themselves as purveyors of local, fresh ingredients, and their suppliers as earthy, family-run outfits, as opposed to giant factory farms. The phrases “all-natural,” “naturally raised” and “cage-free” are everywhere.

Continue…

Roll up Tim Hortons’ (spill-proof) rim

By Alex Ballingall - Thursday, March 29, 2012 at 10:28 AM - 0 Comments

Photograph by Brandon Titaro

Coffee-stained pants, endless frustration tucking back a plastic tab that won’t stay in its designated groove—if you’re a Tim Hortons regular, you’re familiar with such tribulations. The cause, as discussed vehemently on dozens of Internet forums and Facebook groups, is the flat, flimsy lid used by Tim Hortons on their cups.

With an eye to curbing such criticism, Canada’s favourite doughnut shop has quietly unveiled a new lid with an “improved flip tab design.” First available in January, the company plans to have the new lids topping warm beverages in Canada and the U.S. by the end of the year. “We have gotten some comments from customers [saying] they were disappointed with the consistency of the flip tab,” says Tim Hortons’ manager of public affairs Alexandra Cygal. “We wanted to make sure the design is consistent.”

To the oblivious coffee guzzler, the new lids might not appear any different. They’re made from the same plastic material, are still relatively flat (unlike the domed lids at rivals like Starbucks and McDonald’s) and they’re still coloured that familiar chocolate brown. The most significant change lies in the dreaded flip tab, which has been redesigned to fit more snugly into the curved notch and be less prone to tearing. The new lids also appear to offer a tighter seal (eliminating most of those annoying leaks) and allow better stacking of cups one on top of the other.

Continue…

U.S. Humane Society targets Tim Hortons

By Richard Warnica - Thursday, March 15, 2012 at 6:45 PM - 0 Comments

Jamie Fine/Reuters

Gestation crates do not sound like pleasant places to be pregnant. Built for breeding sows, they are rarely larger than a pig’s body. Boxed in by metal bars, the animals often can’t lie down, or really squirm much at all. As a result, animal rights activists consider them inherently cruel. For more than a decade they’ve been pressuring pork producers and buyers to phase them out. The industry argues the crates can offer a safer environment than group housing. But activists have had some success in their fight. A full ban on gestation crates will soon be in place in the European Union; Burger King now buys 20 per cent of its pork from gestation-crate-free farms, and McDonald’s announced last month it wants all its suppliers to move away from crate-confined breeding in the near future.

Now the Humane Society of the United States is going after another target: Canada’s Tim Hortons. At an upcoming shareholders meeting, the society will introduce a motion encouraging the company’s board of directors to report on the feasibility of eliminating crate-bred pigs, as well as eggs laid by caged hens, from its U.S. supply chain. (The Vancouver Humane Society recently launched a petition calling for the same from Canadian suppliers.) The move comes after years of talks with the company went nowhere, according to U.S. Humane Society food policy director Matthew Prescott: “Taking this kind of shareholder action is always the last step for us.”

It’s been an awkward year for the undisputed king of Canadian doughnuts. Tim Hortons is in the midst of a major U.S. expansion, but the company has been without a permanent CEO to guide that push since Don Schroeder, a 20-year Tim’s veteran, left the chain under still unexplained circumstances last May. A big wash of bad publicity—like the kind the Humane Society can generate—is the last thing the company needs as it tries to establish its brand south of the border.

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Is Starbucks pushing their Blonde on the Tim Hortons crowd?

By Jessica Allen - Tuesday, January 24, 2012 at 6:46 PM - 0 Comments

You know how Tim Hortons decided to make “lattes” in an effort to woo some of the sophisticated sorts from Starbucks? I don’t think it’s a coincidence that not long after Starbucks began advertising how their drinks are “handcrafted beverages” rather than, say, from a machine that dispenses a drink with a push of a button. Now Starbucks is releasing a “Blonde” roast that promises to be “lighter, mellower and more subtle” than their bold and medium blends. You know what that sounds like? It sounds a lot like an attempt to compete with Tim’s black water roast, if you ask me. Continue…

Tim Hortons lasagna: just like Mom never made

By Jessica Allen - Friday, December 9, 2011 at 4:32 PM - 8 Comments

I adore lasagna; all kinds of lasagna. I love the sort my mom used to make with canned mushrooms, slices of processed mozzarella and ground beef flavoured with garlic powder and onion; I love the classic Canadian version that other mothers used to make (the one with cottage cheese smothered between layers of noodles, a tomato-dense meat sauce and grated mozzarella from a plastic bag); I love President’s Choice and No Name frozen lasagnas, even though they take, like, forever to cook in the oven; and I love the quintessential lasagna alla Bolognese that comes courtesy of the Italians in Emilia-Romagna, a north-eastern region famous for producing Ferraris, Fellini and food.

They’re so crazy about food in Bologna, the region’s capital and arguably the gastronomical capital of the country, that they even codify classic recipes, for posterity’s sake. Like lasagna alla Bolognese. How does this version differ from what many Canadians grew up eating? Continue…

Tim Hortons goes beyond the double-double

By Scott Feschuk - Monday, November 14, 2011 at 9:30 AM - 8 Comments

Photo Illustration by Taylor Shute

So Tim Hortons sells lasagna now, which makes sense because lunchtime is when our workplaces finally stop smelling like the company’s breakfast sandwiches. Now the pungent aroma of hot beef and tomato sauce can prevail from noon until the Ritual Mid-Afternoon Microwaving of Popcorn By the Colleague We All Secretly Hate.

Even so, Tims selling bowls of lasagna casserole is a little weird, right? The company’s commercials seem to acknowledge this. A guy buys the stuff for lunch and his work pals are like, “Tims sells WHAAAA?” One character seems equally thrilled and confused by the notion, as though the very idea is utterly mad—like going to Starbucks for good chow mein or Red Lobster for good seafood.

And now the iconic coffee chain is starting to serve lattes, too, because apparently people in smaller towns across the country have been demanding the right to overpay for warm milk. One thing is for sure: Tims getting into the latte business is a body blow to Canadian political rhetoric. What easy symbol will aspiring populists now co-opt to identify and belittle the so-called elites of the land? This could be the break you’ve been waiting for, artisanal bread.

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Tim Hortons: rolling in dough

By Michael Friscolanti - Tuesday, September 6, 2011 at 9:40 AM - 4 Comments

Photo Illustration by Liz Sullivan

Last year, customers spent more than $5 billion at Tim Hortons. Five billion dollars. That’s $13.7 million worth of coffee and doughnuts per day. Which, in theory, should leave everyone—head office, shareholders and individual franchisees—with plenty of profit to go around. (Don Schroeder, recently fired as Tim’s CEO, pocketed $5.7 million just for walking away and keeping quiet.)

But not everyone agrees with how the pot is divvied up. Arch and Anne Jollymore, both long-time Hortons franchisees, were in a Toronto courtroom last week hoping to certify a hefty class-action lawsuit against the iconic company, arguing that Tim’s historic shift to frozen doughnuts nearly a decade ago has taken a huge bite out of their cash registers—while providing head office with “spectacular” returns. Their legal briefs are complex (the court file is tens of thousands of pages) but the couple’s claim boils down to this: Hortons “forced” franchisees to scrap their deep fryers, then sold them frozen fritters and crullers for triple the cost of the scratch-baked versions.

Three years after the lawsuit was filed, a judge will soon decide whether the action should be sent to trial or tossed out of court. But whatever the outcome, the high-profile case has already served up one revelation that some loyal double-double drinkers will have a hard time swallowing: the Jollymores aren’t the only Hortons operators who think they should be making more money.

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Tim Hortons raises its quarterly profits 1.5 per cent

By macleans.ca - Friday, August 12, 2011 at 12:27 PM - 2 Comments

Investors were relieved Thursday when Tim Hortons reported a 1.5 per cent increase in quarterly profits, even amid rising commodity costs. Price increases and the company’s line of new products, including the popular fruit smoothie, were the main contributors to its 10 per cent revenue jump in its second-quarter results. Profits climbed from $94.1 million dollars last year, to $95.5 million dollars this year. Net earnings rose from 54 cents per share to 58 cents per share.

Toronto Star

A ‘Tim Hortons prime minister’ hits the golf course

By the editors - Monday, August 8, 2011 at 10:00 AM - 0 Comments

Mark Blinch/Reuters

How have the leaders of the free world been spending the summer?

For U.S. President Barack Obama, summer has proven to be a relentless series of negotiations, bluffs, threats and deadlines as he worked to cobble together an agreement between Republicans and Democrats over an extension to the U.S. debt ceiling, and two widely divergent visions of the future of Washington.

British Prime Minister David Cameron continues to face devastating questions over his personal involvement with the principals in the phone-hacking scandal that has riven the media empire of Rupert Murdoch.

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Love the team—hate the name

By Tom Henheffer - Wednesday, July 27, 2011 at 10:30 AM - 2 Comments

Tom Henheffer

It’s the vodka fuelling their jigs, the blended cappuccino expanding their waistlines, the frozen islands sinking their cruise liners—ice caps are ingrained in Newfoundland culture. But many islanders don’t want the iconic iceberg adorning the jerseys of St. John’s new AHL franchise.

“It’s probably a little bit close to the Tim Hortons thing,” says Gerry Taylor, chairman of Hockey Newfoundland and Labrador. A recent online poll by the Telegram, St. John’s daily newspaper, found a full two-thirds of residents are unhappy about calling their team the Ice Caps. Many critics simply don’t like the association with the creamy summer beverage, but Taylor also feels that the designation is too St. John’s-centric. “It should be more than a capital city team,” he says.

Team director Danny Williams, the former premier of Newfoundland, says the name was actually chosen to appeal to the entire province. “We make Iceberg Vodka, Iceberg Water, we’re the leading jurisdiction for Arctic research. The ice cap is iconic here.”

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Inside Tim Hortons: Dark, rich and bitter

By Michael Friscolanti - Tuesday, July 26, 2011 at 9:00 AM - 6 Comments

Steven E. Frischling/Getty Images

Don Schroeder is in the early days of what his $6-million severance agreement describes as the “quiet period.” For at least the next three years, the ex-president and CEO of Tim Hortons is forbidden from uttering a public word about the closed-door discussions that led to his swift—and still unexplained—exit. He is not permitted to speak to the media. He cannot say or write anything “disparaging, derogatory or defamatory” about the company that canned him. And he has agreed, after consulting with a lawyer, not to sue.

Even during private conversations, Schroeder must choose his words carefully. Clause 17, for example, allows him to share the details of his abrupt dismissal with “immediate family”—but only on the condition that their mouths remain equally shut.

In the meantime, as the 65-year-old settles into his new role as a well-paid (and tight-lipped) Hortons consultant, the full story behind his bizarre firing remains as much of a Bay Street mystery as it did that morning two months ago, when Canada’s favourite coffee shop announced it was suddenly in need of a new boss. “It was the oddest press release I’ve ever seen,” says Brian Yarbrough, an analyst at Edward Jones. “It didn’t say: ‘This gentleman is resigning’ or ‘This gentleman is pursuing other opportunities.’ It was just: ‘He is no longer with the firm.’ We were all sitting here scratching our heads.”

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‘This place is what Canada is all about’

By Ken MacQueen - Thursday, July 14, 2011 at 12:35 PM - 1 Comment

Phil Noble/Reuters

What drew Yellowknife Mayor Gordon Van Tighem to the Northwest Territories 20 years ago, after years in Calgary and Toronto, are some of the same experiences Prince William and Catherine were able to sample during their 40-hour visit to the territorial capital and the wilderness beyond. “You’re on the edge of some of the little remaining, but accessible, wilderness in the world,” says the mayor. “Twenty minutes in any direction you won’t be finding any cigarette packages or Tim Hortons cups, and you can get lost.”

There was little risk of William and Catherine going astray during their whirlwind visit to what the BBC breathlessly described as “the remote settlement of Yellowknife.” The description amused rather than offended the mayor. With almost 20,000 people, representing 120 ethnic groups—and “two McDonald’s”—the mayor considers Yellowknife “a little-big city.” But he couldn’t have been more delighted with William’s glowing description of life above the 60th parallel. “This place is what Canada is all about,” the duke of Cambridge told a cheering crowd of about 3,000 at the civic plaza beside city hall, “vast, open beauty, tough, resilient, friendly peoples. True nature. True humanity.” Behind him were the glistening waters of Frame Lake. Beside him and Catherine on stage were territorial leader Floyd Roland and Aboriginal dancers and drummers. William earned an even bigger roar of approval when he closed his brief remarks by adding his thanks in the languages of the Dene and the north coast Inuvialuit. After opening with a few words of French, the duke looked pleased at acing what may have been his first-ever quadrilingual speech.

The couple, having travelled almost 3,700 km from Charlottetown through three time zones, was allowed a late start Tuesday, and looked the fresher for it. Yellowknife, this time of year, is murder for the sleep deprived. The sun pulls 20-hour days, and the city is bathed in twilight for the remainder of what passes for night. Once up, the couple had a full agenda, “the full meal deal,” as the mayor put it. After opening remarks at the plaza, they watched demonstrations of Dene hand games (a form of gambling) and Inuvialuit high kicks. They also were presented with red Canadian Olympic hockey jerseys with “Cambridge” written across the back. They watched a brief but spirited game of street hockey with a group of young people. William picked up a stick, but failed at three shoot-out attempts to get past goalie Calvin Lowmen, despite the duke’s joking plea that “You’ve got to let one in!”

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Good news, bad news: June 2-9, 2011

By macleans.ca - Thursday, June 9, 2011 at 12:40 PM - 1 Comment

Good News

Wrongfully convicted in her son's death, Tammy Marquardt is freed. (Lucas Leniuk/Toronto Star)

Boots on the ground

Canada’s combat tour in Afghanistan is entering its final few weeks, but the military is already preparing for its next deployment—wherever it may be. Months after being forced out of their secret staging base in Dubai because of a diplomatic spat, the Canadian Forces have reportedly reached deals to open new bases in Germany and Jamaica, and are in talks with Senegal, South Korea, Kenya and Singapore. As Defence Minister Peter MacKay said, Canada has become a “go-to nation” when it comes to responding to natural disasters and other NATO missions—requiring a much bigger bootprint on foreign soil.

A revamped battle plan

Forty years after Richard Nixon declared a “war on drugs,” a new report has confirmed what police, prosecutors—and traffickers—have long known: we’re losing. Released by a consortium of world leaders, including Kofi Annan, the former UN secretary-general, the report says it’s time to start treating drug abuse as a public health problem, not a criminal one, and consider legalizing certain substances to undercut criminal gangs. The war on drugs has cost billions of dollars and countless lives. But, to borrow a phrase, admitting the old strategy is broken is the first step to recovery.

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