At this year’s Supplier Growth Forum on March 10, 2023, Walmart Canada presented its supplier awards to companies including three organizations from the CPG sector:
- Supplier of the Year Health & Wellness 2023: Bayer
- Supplier of the Year Food 2023: FGF Brands Inc.
- Supplier of the Year Walmart Brands 2023: Fresh Taste
As part of their portfolios with Walmart Canada, both FGF Brands Inc. and Fresh Taste in particular support Walmart Canada’s private label offering. “We want our customers to save money with our Walmart Brands, but we never want them to have to compromise on quality. It takes true vendor collaboration to help deliver on these goals,” explains Flora Thay, vice president, Walmart Brands, Walmart Canada.
FGF Brands Inc., based in North York, Ont. is a full-service food manufacturing company that produces some of Walmart Canada’s top bakery items, including muffins, naan bread, packaged bread and croissants. This year, Walmart Canada accelerated its transformation and delivered against new operating model commitments in bakery.
“FGF Brands Inc. has acted with agility and speed to help position Walmart Canada for success. They prioritize availability, achieving over 97 per cent fill rate, helping to keep our shelves full and allowing us to consistently satisfy customers and deliver strong market share gains,” shares Hilary Wingate, director, bakery, Walmart Canada.
Fresh Taste, based in Milton, Ont. provides produce for Walmart Canada under the Your Fresh Market Brand, with offerings including citrus, global foods, fresh cut fruit and—new this year—our Your Fresh Market Meal Kits. These meal kits allow Canadians to access easy, fresh, ready-to-make meals for their family for $9.97 (4 servings).
“A vendor relationship where we can think outside of the box together is one where we can bring innovation, create market disruption and drive simplification within our EDLP business model,” says Flora Thay, VP Walmart Brands, Walmart Canada. “This year, Fresh Taste stepped up to help us meet our goals by investing in new machinery, helping us to enter brand new categories and improve quality specifications, along with implementing a new upstream in Western Canada”.
Suppliers were awarded based on performance in five areas: sales, strategic investment & profit, growth mindset, customer & community, fundamentals and digital.
