The Port Elgin M&M Food Market location has been named ‘Store of the Year’ across Canada by the company.
“When they called us up, we just froze for a second. We were just pretty thrilled,” says franchise owner Cheryl Miller.
Cheryl and Glenn Miller’s store was celebrated as the best in the nation this year at a recent company convention. The location won the ‘club of excellence’ award as well, which has to do with the rewards program.
There are about 350 stores across Canada. With locations in all ten provinces, the Yukon and Northwest Territories.
Miller says of the four awards handed out this year, they won two of them.
“We just bought this store five years ago. We were teachers. We were not business people at all, so we’re pretty thrilled,” says Miller.
She says they track all of their stats and customer feedback surveys, and the company tracks and sends out stats during the year.”
Miller says, “When you’re teaching…. you’re always setting goals and tracking and realigning and so we kind of just used that skill set. We didn’t have a lot of the business skill set that other people had but we made it work.”
They also make a point to donate to the food bank. “We put out a little selection every week,” says Miller, explaining, “This week for instance, we have omelette bites for breakfast. A little four pack for an individual or a couple and then we have little single-serves and then we have meals for families. So people just scan one and we put it in the freezer.”
She says every two weeks the Salvation Army or St. Vincent De Paul picks up the donations. Miller says they started that when they took over the store. “At school we ran those. we both helped run them in our building so we always really valued it.”