TOP: WHITE SPOT; RIGHT: A&W FEBRUARY 2017 BCBUSINESS 37
F
ive years ago, with sales far from
sizzling, A&W Food Services
of Canada Inc. set out to boost
its brand. The plan, accord-
ing to chairman and
CEO Paul
Hollands: o€er younger, food-
savvy consumers something
they'd never expect from a fast-food
chain. "We looked at a whole bunch of
things and tried to †gure out what we
could deliver,'' Hollands recalls at A&W's
North Vancouver headquarters. "The
†rst piece of that was beef.''
Since September 2013, A&W has
sourced all of its beef from livestock
raised without growth hormones or
steroids. It's still the only nationwide
quick-service restaurant operator to
make the switch, and sales from its loca-
tions open for at least two years have
climbed for 12 consecutive quarters.
To help spread the word, the company
recruited Tom Newitt from Richmond-
based Nature's Path Foods Inc. as its
senior director of marketing and brand
communications. It also spent big on
advertising, most notably a ubiquitous
A Tale of Two
Burger Joints
A&W AND WHITE SPOT,
WHICH BOTH CLIMB IN
THE RANKS THIS YEAR,
BEEFED UP THEIR BRANDS
WITH SOME SMART
CHANGES
HITTING THE SPOT
The first White Spot
drive-in opened in
Vancouver in 1928.
The restaurant chain
recently revamped its
menu to appeal more
to millennials
