Success Stories

A few years ago, my brother and I took over the family business, Villa Ste-Rose, which is a private nursing home. Before joining the family business, I was working in a completely different industry. Needless to say, when I first started, I had a lot to learn!

I was introduced to our GESPRA Account Manager, Patricia Bélanger, by my father. At that time, I didn’t know much about GESPRA. I thought it was a membership that nursing homes could join in order to pay less on larger quantities of products, like some sort of Costco membership. I quickly realized it was much more than that.

Patricia has been an amazing partner since day one, helping me better understand the mechanics of proper kitchen management. We have greatly benefited from GESPRA’s comprehensive training platform, along with Patricia’s invaluable support. Unlike a simple subscription that only provides better prices, GESPRA also offered us customized and practical assistance.

Patricia has been a true mentor to us. When she visits our nursing home, she always provides excellent ideas and advice on how to better manage and optimize our inventory, in order to prevent losses. She also provided us with many tips and insights in the kitchen to ensure that we would consistently meet all of MAPAQ’s standards and requirements. This has been instrumental in helping us continue to offer a premium quality of service to our residents.

Patricia, our GESPRA Account Manager, is always ready to help and she consistently provides us with up to date, customized recommendations for Villa Ste-Rose. In the long run, we have been able to save a lot of money by reducing our losses and have also been able to take advantage of the competitive and exclusive pricing offered by GESPRA.

In my opinion, GESPRA is a complete consultancy service that will exceed your expectations; far beyond what you would get with a simple subscription. They provide several high-quality resources, customized service, and convenient access to competent and helpful resources. We truly consider GESPRA to be part of our large Villa Ste-Rose family, as their contributions throughout the years have been an integral part both of our evolution and success.

Jonathan Bélanger
General Manager
Villa Ste-Rose
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Building a trusted relationship with a team outside your organization is not always easy, especially when I was new to the retirement home business. One of the first things I noticed when joining the team at Place Kensington was that we needed more structure and consistency in our food service orders. When I came across a business card mentioning GESPRA's purchasing supply chain management program I had found a partner I could rely on, and we have been in business with GESPRA ever since!

Our GESPRA Account Manager Geneviève Collard does much more than selling products; she collaborates with us and tailors recommendations according to our needs and requests. She truly listens; we benefit from a personalized service with GESPRA, not a general one. The GESPRA team accompanies us from start to finish to assist us in maximizing our savings and investing in the best opportunities for all aspects of our orders. As a Food Service Manager, I want to ensure that my team has the right tools to manage the kitchen and our orders, as well as create a menu that our residents will enjoy.

I know I can count on GESPRA to help us get what we need for our business, quickly and painlessly. A great example is when our bread supplier was no longer meeting our expectations and we knew it was time to make a change. The first thing that my team and I knew we could do was to contact Geneviève. She initiatied a conversation with a new supplier on our behalf while ensuring they were aware of our needs and expectations, all while keeping us informed. This took a lot weight off our shoulders and we are completely satisfied with our new bread supplier. In fact, we have been able to successfully rely on Genevieve’s assistance in many other instances; she will take matters into her own hands to resolve any problems we are experiencing as quickly as possible, and also to ensure that challenges will not happen again. We believe that when suppliers are not a part of the GESPRA program challenge resolutions will progress much more slowly. GESPRA is a trusted reference and cornerstone for our food purchases, being a member makes us feel completely safe and reassured.

I would highly recommend GESPRA to operators who want consistency in their suppliers while being enabled to streamline their ordering process and gain access to competitive and stable pricing. GESPRA gives its customers complete and tangible tools to facilitate changes and maximize savings in addition to being partned in a relationship based on trust. We know that if a supplier is a part of the GESPRA program, our business in in good hands and our Account Manager will ensure that our trust is maintained.

Martin Bergeron,
Food Service Manager
Place Kensington, Westmount
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As Regional Operations Director for the Bromont Residence and a few other Groupe Lepage facilities, it is important for me to have consistency throughout my residences in regards to the suppliers we use and the quality of the products ordered. For this reason, the residences under my supervision have all been GESPRA members for a long time.

In my experience, there are several benefits in being a GESPRA member. We benefit from contract pricing with the many suppliers that are part of the GESPRA program. Being closely connected with our GESPRA Account Manager Geneviève Collard has been a great benefit, she has helped us tremendously in managing our orders and choosing the right suppliers to ensure that the products we are purchasing will meet the needs of each of our homes. It’s a complete turnkey service that allows us to optimize the services we offer to our clients while saving us money.

Because we are part of a group of properties, we believe that being an RQRA member gives our homes greater credibility and we know that GESPRA is a choice partner of the RQRA. Their strong relationship further increases our confidence in both GESPRA and the RQRA and supports the decision that becoming a member has been a good choice for our homes. This greatly impacts the choices we make for our suppliers; if an external supplier contacts me, my first question is to find out if they part of the GESPRA program, or simply to contact Geneviève to discuss the matter with her. All in all, 90% of my suppliers are with GESPRA!

Lastly, thanks to GESPRA’s menu management tools we have been able to ensure consistency in each of our recipes. For example, if a chef is transferred from one residence to another, the quality of the recipe and its composition does not change, because everything has been standardized.

My advice to others is to consider what is important to the wellbeing of your clients and operations. In my personal experience, GESPRA is not just a group that helps us to be more profitable, they are also a provider of essential management tools that can ensure consistency in the quality of services you offer while helping you to save costs.

Michel Vauclair
Regional Operations Manager
Immobilier BBCF
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Résidences Distinction owns three senior living facilities. When we made the decision to join a purchasing group, we had some pertinent criteria that needed to be met, including customer service, the value-added service offering and potential cost savings.

GESPRA was closest to our company values, met our selection criteria and helped us to maintain a high level of quality at competitive prices. The transition process and integration of new suppliers was facilitated by the high level of support that GESPRA provides.

After one full year of having a GESPRA membership, we can proudly say that the GESPRA team and their purchasing program has exceeded our expectations. Thanks to the support of the GESPRA Account Managers, the solutions presented to our unique challenges, and the efficiency of GESPRA supplier partners, we can now better perform as a company.

Well done GESPRA!

Alain Fayle
General Manager
Les Résidences Distinction
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The GESPRA program is essential to my work and is something that I use every week. I find their online programs are really easy to use and they have helped me to be more efficient and effective in my role, even though I am not the most proficient with computers. For example, I am able to quickly and easily place my orders online using eGESPRA Purchasing, and through GESPRA Recipes I can access hundreds of delicious and easy-to-follow recipes, and manage my food costs through their recipe scaling tool. I have been very satisfied with GESPRA’s services and find them simply outstanding. I highly recommend using GESPRA and its numerous services to all foodservice managers.

Patrick Gauthier
Foodservice Manager
Les Jardins Ste-Émilie
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The GESPRA program and team provides a very high quality level of service. Every year, my GESPRA advisor and I meet to review our participation of the GESPRA program. This annual review enables me to see how my purchases have evolved year after year, and I am provided with recommendations for equivalent products at better prices. I can also contact my GESPRA advisor any time throughout the year and I always receive detailed answers to my questions in a timely manner.

I have had the opportunity to meet the entire GESPRA team during their “Les Chefs à l’Action” event, as well as at the RQRA annual conference; each interaction was a truly a pleasure.

In a nutshell, GESPRA’s service is excellent and I highly recommend the GESPRA program to anyone looking for outstanding service and access to a wide array of useful tools and resources designed for our success.

Sonia Beaulieu
Owner
Résidence Le Royal
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The health, happiness and wellbeing of our residents is very important to us, and the dining experience is an integral part of their satisfaction with their choice to live in our home. With an understanding of how important this, I used to spend a lot of time looking for and testing recipes that would excite our residents.

My GESPRA Account Manager, Rémi Côté understood this challenge and introduced me to the eGESPRA member’s portal which includes a Menu & Recipes section. I was immediately impressed with the number of powerful resources that eGESPRA Menu & Recipes offered. For example, it gave us access to over 1,000 recipes while allowing us to customize, scale, or add in our own. Our menu is changed twice per year to reflect the season (winter or summer), and now eGESPRA is where I start looking for new ideas; and I always find what I’m looking for. For me, this was simply fantastic!

In addition to finding a multitude of recipes, I have also found many other benefits. For example, using the nutritional information provided, we can reassure our residents and their families that our menu is healthy as well as great-tasting. I have also been able to ensure that our menu is within the budget through the portion cost estimates, and I have been able to centralize the recipes we are using (as well as our own) in our personalized recipe database.

I highly recommend eGESPRA Menus & Recipes as an outstanding service to anyone looking for fast and efficient access to a wide selection of inspiring recipes.

Jean Pomerleau
Corporate Chef
Groupe Château Bellevue
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