From the Ground Up - McCain Foods Limited

Harvesting potatoes near
Florenceville, 2005.
was producing close to half a million kilograms of potato products per hour, as well
as a host of other frozen food items. It had twenty-one thousand employees working
in fifty-seven factories in fifteen countries on six continents. Yet its home base is
still the rural village of Florenceville, where a road sign at the town limits declares:
“Florenceville – French Fry Capital of the World.”
The sign is not a boast but a simple statement of fact. Almost all eaters of french
fries at some point will eat a McCain french fry, whether or not they are aware of
it. McCain french fries are everywhere – in McDonald’s and KFCs and thousands of
other restaurants and supermarket freezer compartments in more than a hundred
countries. One of every three french fries sold worldwide is a McCain french fry,
which translates into one hundred million servings of McCain french fries each and
every day.
Canada doesn’t have many brands recognizable to consumers around the world.
Canada Dry and Canadian Club originated in Canada but the companies that produce
them are no longer based there. BlackBerry, the wireless email device; Bata footwear;
Four Seasons hotels; and Harlequin, the romance book publisher, are Canadianbased
global brands. So is McCain, still owned by the McCain family and so popular
internationally that, in 2003, A.C. Neilson, the marketing information company,
named it a “global mega brand.”
Yet, back in 1956, Harrison and Wallace were not even dreaming of creating a
multinational business empire. “We just wanted to get something going, make some
money,” recalls Wallace. “I know it never crossed my mind that we would be an international
global business.”
A good product is an essential ingredient of business success. So is hard work. And
so is good timing. Harrison and Wallace McCain had picked the perfect time to start
a frozen food business. They were entering a new industry just when
the technology that made the industry possible was being developed.
At the same time, the Canadian population was growing rapidly, thanks
to the loudest baby boom of the industrialized world and a high rate of
immigration. More people meant more mouths to feed and more business
for food processors.
More important still, a momentous social change was getting underway,
one that would fuel the growth of the industry through the 1960s
and beyond: the entry of ever-increasing numbers of women into the
labour force. With both partners working, families had less time and
energy to prepare meals. Anything that made the task easier – frozen
french fries, for example – was welcome. The proliferation of fast food restaurants was
also in part the result of the entry of married women into the labour force. Families
with two wage earners had less time to cook at home and more disposable income to
spend in restaurants. Eating out, once reserved for special occasions, became routine.
Before World War II, only a minority of Canadians owned cars. During the 1950s,
car ownership increased rapidly. To cater to hungry drivers, the restaurant industry
built drive-in and other quick-service restaurants. French fries, which can be eaten
without utensils, were the perfect food for the automobile era.
In 1948, brothers Dick and Mac McDonald revamped their restaurant in San
Bernardino, California, to feature counter-style quick service, offering fifteen-cent
hamburgers and ten-cent servings of french fries. Ray Kroc bought the right to franchise
McDonald’s from the brothers and, in 1955, opened his first McDonald’s outlet
in Des Plaines, Illinois. The first Kentucky Fried Chicken opened in 1952. But
it wasn’t until the 1960s that these and other chains began to spread rapidly across
4 From the Ground up
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