From the Ground Up - McCain Foods Limited

Wallace
Margaret McCain likes to say that her husband, Wallace, is
bilingual – he speaks Maritime English and cursing. No one
felt the brunt of his salty language more than ice hockey
referees when they made what Wallace considered unfair
calls against the Potato Kings, a Florenceville team sponsored
by McCain Foods during the 1970s.
“Wallace was an enthusiastic hockey fan,” recalls Ian
Cameron, who played left wing and centre. “His language at
the games was just awful. To hear him yelling and screaming
at referees would just turn your hair.”
So keen a fan was Wallace that he selected employees
for McCain Foods on the basis of their hockey skills. Most
turned out to be excellent employees and in some cases
strong managers. Cameron, for example, has worked in
senior management positions for McCain Foods for three
decades.
The Potato Kings played in the Republican League, an
amateur circuit in New Brunswick. Many of the players
worked for McCain. Tim Bliss, vice-president of engineering,
was the team’s coach. In 1972, Bliss heard that Cameron
and Bill Adams, both recently hired by Day & Ross, McCain’s
trucking company, were good hockey players. Adams, who
became a McCain vice-president, had rated a tryout with
the Toronto Maple Leafs.
“Pretty soon they were in Florenceville working as production
management trainees and playing hockey,” recalls
Bliss, who says about eight McCain employees were hired
to strengthen the Potato Kings.
When Bliss got too busy to be the head coach, McCain
hired John French, who had played professional hockey
in the World Hockey Association, to replace him as head
coach and work in the accounting department.
For Wallace, sometimes the welfare of the team took
precedence over that of the factory. On one occasion, Bert
Inman, a good player, was called away from the fryer when
nobody else was present to operate it because Wallace
wanted him to travel to Campbelltown to play for the team.
“Wallace was a big supporter of our team and the game
of hockey,” says French. “If he had customers or employees
in from out of town and there was a game on, that’s where
they ended up, whether they wanted to be there or not.”
Wallace played on the Florenceville high school hockey
team and then on the junior varsity team during his one
year at the University of New Brunswick. “I was never much
of a player, but I had a lot of fun at it,” he says.
After a few years, the Potato Kings folded. “It started out
for a laugh because I liked hockey and there wasn’t much
to do in Florenceville,” says Wallace. But after a few years,
he decided that the $50,000 a year it was costing McCain
to sponsor the Potato Kings was too much, especially since
the championship seemed out of the team’s reach. “I don’t
like to lose,” Wallace says.
His son Scott, now a Maple Leaf Foods executive,
carries on the family hockey tradition as majority owner
of the Saint John Sea Dogs of the Quebec Major Junior
Hockey League. Scott also played for the Potato Kings.
“He was a great player,” says Wallace.
TOP LEFT: The Potato Kings in action, 1979.
TOP RIGHT: The 1974–75 Potato Kings, with Bill Adams in
hockey uniform at bottom left. Coach Tim Bliss is on the far
right, middle row, with manager Don Wishart beside him.
I had decided to take a chance on McCain
Foods, I guess my enthusiasm convinced
them to take a chance with me, and with
McCain. For many of them, it proved to
be a very satisfactory career.” As the years
went by, however, the company preferred
to hire inexperienced people rather than
recruit veterans from other companies.
“Training them ourselves, we have better
results,” McWhirter said. “More loyalty
and fewer bad habits.”
McWhirter enjoyed a challenge, and
one of the biggest during the early years
was trying to persuade western Canadians
to buy french fries processed in the
east. “We had a lot of fun in the 1960s selling
in western Canada,” he told The Star.
“I mean, who wanted to buy a truckload of frozen potatoes from New Brunswick? The
first question from the distributor was, ‘Where the hell is Florenceville?’ Also, many
distributors said, ‘You’re crazy, McWhirter, we’ve got enough potatoes here in Manitoba
and Alberta to satisfy us all.’” In addition to helping introduce McCain to western
Canada, McWhirter pioneered sales in Singapore, Australia, and the Caribbean.
Another important early recruit was Carl Ash, who joined McCain in 1965 as
comptroller. When Ash applied for the job, Harrison asked Ken Cossaboom, who
was then accountant for McCain, to speak with Ash and get back to Harrison with
his opinion. Cossaboom said, “The signature on his CV is ‘C. Ash.’ So I think he is the
right man to handle the company’s finances.”
McCain Foods has been a financial success from the beginning. Its first operating
statement, for the period ended May 31, 1957, showed a profit of $1,822, and the company
has made money ever since – an almost unheard of achievement. It was growing rapidly,
but rapid growth is no guarantee of increased profits. Costs must be kept under control.
Harrison and Wallace McCain knew that if they were to manage McCain’s growth effectively,
they would need better financial information than they were getting.
At the time, Ash was manager of finance at the Dominion Bridge Company in
Montreal. But he had grown up in Nova Scotia and New Brunswick and wanted to
return to the Maritimes. Every year, he and his wife drove to Amherst, Nova Scotia,
26 From the Ground up
t he BeG inninG 27
Harrison and Wallace on a
Thomas Equipment tree
shearer, 1969.