DAILY FIX
“Each store receives a daily delivery of freshly-made products, backed up with the strictest quality and freshness control assurance, made from raw materials sourced directly from the best Ontario farms,” states Denninger.
“We currently produce just under one million kilograms a year of our own poultry, pork and beef products—consisting of over 200 SKUs (stock-keeping units) of cold-cuts, sausages and smoked meats—and well over 100 additional prepared fine foods,” says Denninger, adding that the company also imports a range of upscale foods from around the world, nicely complementing the in-store bakeries and snack-bars operated on the premises.
Photo by Cole Garside
Keeping its distribution strategy on a relatively tight leash has proved to be a very successful business model for the company, Denninger explains, in terms of building up enviable consumer awareness and loyalty to its signature Denninger’s brand—tirelessly nurtured on a continuous basis through countless in-store tasting events and new product demonstrations and samplings.
“Because our products are only sold through our own six locations, our customer loyalty is very high,” states Denninger.
“We try to grow that family loyalty by doing things like giving a free slice of our hugely popular Lyoner-style Bologna to every child coming into our stores, something we have done right from the start.
“And over the years, many of these children have grown into our present-day customers, still often reminding us how that first slice of bologna turned them into a fan,” she relates, noting that the company does ship a small part of its processed product, about five per cent, to a few select deli shops around Toronto and in the Niagara Falls region.
“Retail has always been our big strength,” says Denninger. “Our customer loyalty is a direct result of the reputation for our product quality, freshness and service that we have built up over the years.
“People just keep coming back to Denninger—choosing us even over the so-called ‘convenience’ of a supermarket retailer.”
Photo by Cole Garside
The company’s local focus and customer service has earned it something of a cult status in the Hamilton region, with its long list of industry and community awards including the Hamilton Spectator and Burlington Post Reader’s Choice Awards for Best Deli, Best Specialty Food Retailer, Best Butcher Shop and Best Sandwich; the Outstanding Business Achievement Award of the Hamilton Chamber of Commerce; and the Canadian Retailer of the Year Award from the Canadian Specialty Food Association.
Despite its German roots, the company likes to think of the whole world as its kitchen, according to Denninger, citing a string of successful recent new-product launches such as the Japanese Kobe-classic Beef Slider Burgers and Prime Rib Sliders; British-inspired Steak, Cheddar & Ale Pie; French-style Yellow Pea Soup; Italian Marinara sauce; fresh chipotle sausage and glutenfree turkey burgers.
Naturally, growing the company’s product portfolio goes hand-in-hand with expanding the capabilities of its processing and packaging equipment, says Denninger, relating the
Photo by Cole Garside
September 2009 purchase of new model R125 thermoforming machine from Multivac Inc.
“This is our third Multivac system,” Denninger reveals. “We purchased our first one back in the early 1980s—an M800 D machine—and a few years later purchased a second identical
model, which allowed us to have two lines running simultaneously to pack sliced cold-cuts, bacon and pepperette-style sausages.”
The new Multivac R125, which replaced one of the older models, not only performs better when packaging bacon and sausages, according to Denninger, but also provides the production flexibility of being able to pack products containing liquids, such as marinated steak and cabbage rolls with sauce.
“For us, the new R125 machine is faster, more versatile, and has the added bonus of having other capabilities that we can utilize in the future when we are ready,” explains Denninger.
Photo by Cole Garside
“For now, we are using it to pack food products with and without liquids, and with or without MAP (modified atmosphere packaging) gases, including bologna, ham, bacon, back bacon, turkey and other selected cold-cuts, as well as fresh and smoked sausages, marinated steaks, cabbage rolls and meatballs.”
Conceived and engineered as an economical, next-generation thermoforming machine for smaller, growing companies making more use of flexible packaging formats, according to Multivac, the fully-automatic R125 system boasts a new hygienic design and several technological enhancements to optimize the machine’s performance, ergonomics and operational cost-efficiencies.
“While price is obviously a major factor for all smaller companies making major capital expenditures,” reflects Denninger, “so too is the quality of the equipment, and having our other Multivacs work as well as they did for the past 30 years really made our decision to purchase a new model a no-brainer.
Photo by Cole Garside
“We found that the R125’s design has actually made the cleaning process on both the interior and exterior of the machine faster,” says Denninger, explaining that the open design of the chain and chain-guide
facilitates quick-and-easy removal of any contaminants and impurities without the need to disassemble the chain.
Moreover, the R125 machine’s exterior design eliminates all the crevices and other dead spaces with smooth graded surfaces that prevent water or dirt from pooling during the daily cleaning—complementing
other important hygienic design perks of closed return shafts, a sanitary film intake mechanism, and elimination of exterior threads on height-adjustable feet.
“And while the hygienic aspects of the machine are very important to us,” notes Denninger, “so too is its packaging capabilities that have helped us create fantastic seals around our products in a faster and more efficient manner.
“As we continue to experiment with this fine piece of equipment,” she extols, “we feel that its ability to package meats and liquids together will prove to be even more financially lucrative for us in the very near future.”
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