For the second year in a row, our team in Moncton has teamed up with the food banks of New Brunswick to collaborate on Hunger Awareness Weekfundraising efforts. This year our team came together to host a barbeque for more than 350 people, while offering brewery tours, hosting a live radio broadcast, and having members of the Moncton Wildcats hockey team onsite to sign autographs!
Hosted over the lunch hour, the event saw support from dozens of companies in the local business park, including many who donated corporately for the opportunity to host an NHL Playoff viewing party at the brewery during this year’s playoffs.
New this year, we added a Molson Give-R event hosted at Overtime Sports. That event also saw C103 broadcasting live, as well as a sampling of some of our new products. The night ended with a draw – done in collaboration with Food Depot Alimentaire – to send a lucky winner to Montreal next season to see the Canadiens host the Maple Leafs.
By the end of it, our team ended up raising more than $9,000 to support the local food banks!
The sound of morning birds high in the trees singing their early morning calls…toss and turn at 453 am…dog out to do it’s business…coffee on and i thought, “why not sit down and write a spring blog”. After all, three days of 20 degree + celsius and it actually feels like spring has sprung in Toronto. I must also admit that some other factors contribute to this overwhelming shift in season for me. Obviously with the NHL playoffs commencing this week, after what might have been a lost season, the city is truly excited. I was blown away by the sea of blue and white downtown and on the subway on Wednesday night. Love to see the community spirit. As a partner with the Toronto Maple Leafs and Montreal Canadiens we actually celebrated a little playoff BBQ at our head office on Tuesday, just to get the team in the spirit of spring playoffs. Our President Stewart Glendinning and Chief Legal and People Officer Kelly Brown and fellow leadership team members helped host staff over the lunch hour…a little competitive spirit added of course. And we can’t forget our third sponsored club in the first round of playoffs of course - Ottawa Senators.
Stewart and Kelly hosting
And then of course there is the return of the summer rep. Gosh, 32 years ago I sat in a similar seat as a young representative from northwestern Ontario. It was the summer of the Jeux Canada Games in Thunder Bay. What a grounding experience that has carried friends and memories for me across my entire 29 career at Molson Coors. A toast to our returning summer reps and those who have just joined us. I know that they will represent us well at events and promotions coast to coast to coast and always flying the responsible choices banner as they go about their business.
Another sign of spring is the annual Randstad awards night. Randstad does a great job at reaching out to 7000 prospective employees across the country to assess the attractiveness of 150 employees. Proudly Molson Coors ranked eleventh this year. A special treat this year was Debbie Travis presenting her “ten commandments” for success. Inspiring and entertaining to say the least !
A toast to our employees and all that they do to carry the passion, commitment and drive for our business…over the past 227 years. Now that’s heritage. Naturally we are nothing without those who carry our products to market and the beer drinkers who support us at the taps, retail store or your favourite drinking occasion. We appreciate and value your business.
And of course the beer business and all that we face in regulations, taxes, mark ups. Provincial budgets are another sign of spring and the Ontario budget was filed yesterday by the Wynne government in Ontario. Good news for beer drinkers and customers in Ontario is that there is not any increase in the beer taxes. Now that’s worth a toast on a sunny day at the legislature with blossoms in bloom at the memorial to Queen Victoria !
Another sign of spring is the renewed commitments to community. Across this great land we engage with community leaders in so many ways. Whether they are local festivals and events designed to instill community spirit and celebrate the arts, local sports events and team get togethers or support for a charity or not for profit of choice. The Beer Store in Ontario will be undertaking their annual drive for Leukemia. Hats off to them and their union membership and Beer Store customers who donate their empties and the difference that they make in our community. May 25th and 26th please donate your empty deposit refunds.
Perhaps you have a thought on spring being sprung. I hope you’ll share it. A toast to you and yours this spring weekend. No doubt we’ll all be seeking a patio, a television screen to watch playoffs and some great quality time with family and friends as the weather warms. Cheers to a great wrap to the week and start to the weekend. @MolsonFerg
REDUCE the amount of waste going to landfills. RE-USE the standard bottle up to 15 times before being melted down for recycling. RECYCLE 100% of beer packaging.
As responsible brewer, we’re proud of the steps we’ve taken with the industry to reduce our ‘Beer Print’. In Ontario alone, The Beer Store’s deposit return system has recovered approximately 75-billion beer bottles over the past 85 years! To see the other environmental benefits of bottle returns check out this Beer Store infographic:
And here’s a sneak peek into one of our breweries during part of the returns system where the bottles are collected, washed and reused:
Industry standard bottles from various brands are sent to our breweries.
Photo by Christopher Drost
This bottle washing machine thoroughly washes 60 bottles at a time with detergent. The labels get removed and goes through a rinse cycle.
Photo by Christopher Drost
After the bottles come out nice and clean, then it’s off to inspection!
Photo by Christopher Drost
So if you have any empties lying around, you know what to do!
Together with Hailo and TAXIGUY, Molson Coors was invited to participate in Humber College’s Alcohol Awareness event to promote responsible choices. This year’s theme was superheroes: Don’t Drink and Fly.
The event was all about empowering students to make safe decisions related to alcohol. Throughout the day, over 750 students came through to speak and engage with a variety of exhibitors including Crime Stoppers/R.I.D.E. (Reduce Impaired Driving Everywhere), Smart Serve, Arrive Alive Drive Sober and the LCBO.
Check out this video the Public Relations postgraduate students created to mark the occasion!
Ah, back at it after an Easter weekend break with family and friends. Easter sometimes is that true bridge to spring; not quite this year in Toronto, given our below zero temperatures continuing. Enough of that…
Easter is also a time of year when one (this one anyway) reflects on all the great things that we have as we celebrate with family and friends around us. After 29 years in the beer business I’ve come to realize that this industry of ours is one of deep community roots and involvement.
When I look back at my early years as a summer representative in Northern Ontario my whole focus was on community. From visiting tourist resorts along wooded gravel roads, to slo pitch and fast ball tournaments with men and women across the northwest of Ontario, to the Jeux Canada Games in Thunder Bay in 1981 and again in Sherbrooke in 2103, to door prizes for local charitable events…it was all about supporting our community.
Beer in Canada is part of our social fabric (it likely is where you are too but I can really only speak with authority on Canada). Molson Coors has continued to play our part in supporting events, festivals, entertainment and sports related events big and small from coast to coast to coast.
We are also proud to support our employees and the difference that they continue to make in their communities. We match their donations through our Molson Coors Donations Fund and will “double match” when they play an executive role for charity or not for profit organization. We also afford our employees with the opportunity to share their passion with fellow employees by posting their efforts in our internal social Cheers network on yammer. We have a long roster of employees committed to various charitable causes.
So, all this said, Molson Coors folks are part of an industry that continues to play a big part in our community. It is core to our business. When people come together to celebrate or make a difference in their community they can also toast their efforts with a nice cold Molson Coors. Proudly, it all dates back to our founder John Molson who was quoted while speaking to employees saying, “we are all members of a larger community, which depends on everyone playing a part.”
So cheers to beer folks across this great land that continue to play their part in our community. It’s a big part of who we are and a big part of what we love doing in the beer business. Cheers ! @MolsonFerg
The Montreal brewery, in Canada, has once again demonstrated that it is possible to brew good beer and to be green.
In February, Molson Coors took top honours in the ‘Industrial or Manufacturing Process — $5 million and over’ category at the Énergia 2012 awards organized by the Energy Management Association of Quebec (AQME).
The contest recognizes achievements in building energy efficiency, technological innovation, industrial and manufacturing processes, as well as transport, integrated management and greenhouse gas reduction. Of the 48 projects selected as finalists, 16 received awards.
For Molson Coors, it was facilities retrofit work providing for reduced energy and water consumption that earned the company this prestigious award. Work carried out extended to 4 buildings and covered and area of some 475 000 ft2. In total, some hundred air handling units, air heaters, air evacuators and recovery devices were retrofitted or replaced. Existing equipment was between 20 and 40 years old, with some no longer in optimal working order.
Energy savings achieved:
Water consumption was reduced by 9 200 000 litres a year through the elimination of water-cooled air conditioning units.
Natural gas consumption was reduced by 1 562 800 cubic metres a year, thereby trimming CO2 emissions by 2955 tons a year.
Electricity consumption was reduced by about 1 609 400 kWh a year.
Over and above the environmental benefits, reduced operating costs have enhanced both profitability and performance at our Montreal brewery!
Congratulations to the entire team of individuals responsible for this project!
Le concours vise à récompenser les réalisations en matière d’efficacité énergétique dans le bâtiment, les innovations technologiques, les procédés industriels et manufacturiers ainsi que le transport, la gestion intégrée et la réduction de gaz à effet de serre. Parmi 48 projets finalistes, 16 ont été récompensés.
Pour Molson Coors, c’est la remise à neuf de ses installations permettant de réduire sa consommation d’énergie et d’eau qui lui a valu une récompense. Le projet réalisé s’étend sur 4 bâtiments et environ 475 000 pi2. Au total, une centaine de centrales d’air, aérothermes, évacuateurs, unités de récupération ont été touchées ou remplacés lors de ce projet. Les équipements existants avaient entre 20 et 40 ans et plusieurs d’entre eux n’étaient plus en bon état de fonctionnement.
Les économies d’énergie :
La consommation d’eau a été réduite de 9 200 000 litres d’eau par an en éliminant des climatiseurs refroidis à l’eau.
Notre projet a permis de réduire de 1 562 800 mètres cubes de gaz naturel ou 2 955 tonnes de CO2 par an.
Nous avons réduit environ 1 609 400 kW/h d’électricité/an.
En plus d’aider l’environnement, grâce aux économies d’opération, l’entreprise devient ainsi plus profitable et permet de garder l’usine de Montréal hautement performante!
