Gordon Food Service is an institution in Canada, and by this winter, they’ll have opened one of the most state-of-the-art distribution centres in the province. While Ajax prepares to welcome this family-run empire to the area, we look at the company’s history and speak to executives about their plans to take their place in Durham’s business community.

A spring day in June marked a new beginning for a 122-year-old business — Gordon Food Services’ (GFS) executives, along with local dignitaries, literally celebrated a groundbreaking achievement. Standing at Salem and Ringer Roads, in the heart of Ajax, Ont.’s Carruther’s Creek Business Park, GFS was welcomed into the
community, and construction officially began on their state-of-the-art 342,000-square-foot distribution centre.


Not only was this a momentous occasion for the GFS employees who attended the celebration to break ground, it was certainly seen as a coup for this Durham Region town. “Economic development and providing jobs in our local communities is job one for all levels of government,” said Steve Parish, who was the mayor of Ajax at the time. “But we know governments don’t create jobs. What we can do is create the atmosphere and environment and the infrastructure for the private sector to locate and create those jobs.”


And those jobs are coming. There will be 300 employees at the logistics and distribution centre to start, but once they’re at full capacity, there will be about 600 workers on-site. “We’ve outgrown our Milton, Ont., location,” Scott McDeivitte, the marketing manager for Ontario, says. “Capacity is a pressing issue — our footprint in Milton has expanded several times and we just can’t get any bigger here. We knew we wanted to better service the eastern part of the province, and Durham was a great selection.” Not only does Ajax make sense geographically, it also has a good workforce to tap into. “We do a lot of business east of Toronto and when we started looking for a new site, we felt very welcomed by Durham Region —there are a lot of synergies and innovations coming out of the area,” says Lisa MacNeil, the president of GFS Ontario, whose presence at the ceremony was like a homecoming — she grew up in Whitby.

GFS is a force in North America’s foodservice distribution landscape. The new centre is the company’s ninth facility in Canada (there are sites from coast to coast), plus they boast 16 locations in the United States. For more than 120 years they’ve done big business — so big that they now have about 36,000 customers (restaurants, universities, hotels, healthcare facilities, stadiums and “anywhere else that services food”) across Canada and 1,500 deliveries leave the Milton facility every day. “We do everything — more than 19,000 products — from fresh and frozen protein and beverages to chemicals and tableware. If you turned a restaurant upside down and shook it, we can supply everything that would fall.”

Theirs is one of those small-family-business-turned-giant-successful-corporation tales. In 1897, the company’s founder, Isaac Van Westenbrugge, was a 23-year-old entrepreneur who borrowed $300 from his brother to start a butter and egg delivery service. He sold his products to grocers in Grand Rapids, MI, and made his deliveries via horse and wagon. Eight years later, Van Westenbrugge started a grocery wholesale business with a partner and in 1914, the company bought their first delivery truck. Ben Gordon got a job with Van Westenbrugge in 1916 doing jack-of-all-trade tasks (bookkeeping, unloading margarine, washing windows). He eventually married into the Van Westenbrugge family and became Isaac’s partner in the Gordon-Van Cheese Company. Ben’s brother, Frank, later joined the business and when Van Westenbrugge retired in 1942, they renamed the corporation Gordon Food Service.

Van Westenbrugge’s original approach to business — fierce commitment and incomparable loyalty to customers — has carried on through the decades. “For me, the values that built the company are really wonderful and we’re proud of the family-oriented, hard-working culture we’ve continued,” says MacNeil, who’s been at GFS for 31 years. The company has seen incredible changes throughout the years, including the advent of a plethora of innovative technologies that make doing business easier, and they’ve grown with the times. GFS has actually been the leader in many of these advances, including introducing the industry’s first automated sorting and shipping system, which was implemented in Wyoming, MI.

Back in Ajax, the new warehouse will build on the company’s innovative past and will contain several automated features, including vertical farming (which the innovators at US-based Relish, the company’s innovation arm, brought to the table) and product selection — a super-important component of the business. “The technology we use is highly important to us. We are implementing features that haven’t yet been used in food services in Canada,” says MacNeil. A key part of what they’re implementing is safety and wellness measures for employees — an area both she and Victor Morales, the Ontario director of operations, are huge proponents of. “We have invested in ensuring we create a safe, comfortable and ergonomic workplace, and we’re using new technology to make it happen,” Morales says. While most North American food service distribution companies use manual selection processes (pulling cases on racks, sorting, placing on palettes, loading onto trucks and trailers), GFS will incorporate an automated system that takes physical bending out of the equation. This might not seem like a big deal to folks who aren’t in the business, but this ergonomic fix is incredibly significant. “It keeps our employees safer and healthy, and it means we can hire a more balanced team gender-wise because there’s no heavy lifting involved,” says Morales. Other wellness features include on-site nurses, physiotherapists and massage therapists; a quiet room and prayer room; a cafeteria that focuses on healthy diets; stretching classes; and more. Plus, there will be a state-of-the-art culinary centre with a full industrial kitchen, which will be used not only for internal events, but for customers who visit the facility to work with GFS culinary experts to develop their menus. The company really does do it all.

“We do everything – more than 19,000 products – from fresh and frozen protein and beverages to chemicals and tableware. If you turned a restaurant upside down and shook it, we can supply everything that would fall.”

“While it’s exciting to build a new facility, our long-term vision is centred on people, and we look forward to building enduring relationships with the community of Ajax and surrounding areas.”

Those searching for new career opportunities in Durham need look no further than the distribution centre — GFS has been hiring for a slew of positions, from selection supervisors and industrial mechanics, to driver trainers and quality assurance personnel. The plan is to be up and running by February 2020. “This centre is a symbol of something bigger for us,” MacNeil said at the ground-breaking. “While it’s exciting to build a new facility, our long-term vision is centred on people, and we look forward to building enduring relationships with the community of Ajax and surrounding areas.”
Lisa van de Geyn

Lisa is a longtime veteran of Canada’s magazine scene who has worked at or freelanced for several of the country’s venerable titles, including Chatelaine, Canadian Living, Today’s Parent, House & Home, Best Health and Reader’s Digest.

Recommended Posts

Connecting Global Tech Talent with the EOIC
Get into the Spirit
Finding a New Home for Your Business