New Production Strategy for
La Marguerite & Co.
Collaboration with the team of pastry chefs and the manager of La Marguerite & Co.
For nearly 30 years, Montreal-based family business La Marguerite & Co. has combined culinary expertise and creativity to offer a wide range of starters, main courses and pastries for corporate events, bar mitzvahs, weddings and other social occasions.
Supported by a team of 33 passionate employees with extensive experience gained in the finest establishments, the award-winning company has already brought a new “Glatt Kosher” gastronomic experience to its guests. With this success comes the challenge for pastry chefs to meet the growing demand, both locally and in the USA, where 80% of macaroon production is shipped.
It is now necessary to rethink the production strategy in order to adapt it to the real challenges of the sector. This will help the company to develop, in particular within mass distribution, and convey the brand, which already benefits from an excellent image due to their value-added products.
“Working with Merkur was an outstanding experience, we will definitely collaborate with Merkur for our continuous expansion projects. A special thanks to Damien (Operational Excellence Advisor, Merkur), for being an amazing asset in our collaboration”
Merkur’s Mandate
Merkur’s team was asked to collaborate on the new manufacturing strategy for the pastry sector, to identify its needs, including mass distribution, and develop its full market potential.
Customer satisfaction was already well established for catering services in the events sector prior to the pandemic, so the time was right to rethink the entire production flow, from raw material reception to warehousing and packaging. Adapted to the real challenges of mass retailing, and operating at high production rates, conditional unit sales for the pastry range would be promising, and inventory management optimized.
Manufacturing Strategy
- Increase production capacity and performance
- Enhance quality standards that are our strength
- Improve the working environment and employee well-being
- Develop a technology watch aligned with market needs
- Initiate a process for monitoring cost and performance indicators in collaboration with the manager
- Identify new cold storage requirements
- Optimize the packaging of individual pastries
- Propose innovative and pragmatic technological solutions
A New Workshop for La Marguerite & Co.
In reorganizing the on-site production system, the layout of the spaces was also rethought for greater functionality. Merkur’s building expertise was called upon to assess the issues of electrical capacity, warehousing solutions and location of production equipment. Suppliers were also invited to work sessions to help find the right solutions to meet the equipment needs of pastry chefs and preparers.
Effective inter-team coordination was put in place to produce final plans with different scenarios within a month: architectural plans, evaluation, comparison of scenarios, evaluation of production equipment, assistance in selecting suppliers, recommendations.
Several constraints were taken into account to meet quality criteria and kosher compliance requirements, reinforced by the manager’s desire to share “in-house know-how”. Each person’s role and responsibilities were then reviewed to establish new standards and produce on a regular basis, taking into account the variability of the workforce.
With La Marguerite having been looking to modernize for some time, and in close collaboration with Merkur, the major reorganization of production processes and space planning have enabled the company’s social side to evolve, notably with an improvement in employees’ day-to-day work.
978 sq.ft.
ADDITIONAL COLD STORAGE
1/3
REDUCTION IN PRODUCTION TIME
x 4
CAPACITY GAINS THROUGH AUTOMATION
Results
- Creation of a new pastry preparation area
- Increase in sales volumes
- Increased cold storage capacity
- Implementation of a first level of automation
- Improved organization with new layout and separation of work areas from the bakery
Benefits
- Better management of daily production
- Better inventory management and anticipation
- Improved employee well-being in day-to-day work
- Maintain production requirements by reinforcing team autonomy
Expertise
- Project management
- Methodology
- Building services
- Operations management: focusing on process excellence and optimization
