Model Bakery
In October 1897, George Weston unveiled his "Model Bakery", Canada's largest and most modern bread factory, at the corner of Soho and Phoebe streets in Toronto. Newspaper reports told of how Weston had travelled to other countries to inspect the latest in baking technology and that his new establishment represented the best of what he had seen. Not only was the factory hailed for its efficiency and cleanliness, but also its capacity to turn out thousands of loaves of bread:
Remember that bread alone is made in this immense factory, and such bread it is that has made the name of its maker famous. Over 3200 large loaves are turned out on an average daily, but the factory has a capacity of 6,500 loaves. One may judge the largeness of the business done weekly when it takes nearly three hundred barrels of flour to supply the weekly demand. Two teams are kept busy all day Friday and Saturday hauling flour to supply the week’s needs.[8]
Although the Model Bakery was well received by the Toronto press, its appearance resulted in a price war, apparently initiated by the city's other bakers. On hearing that competitors were offering cut-rate bread – contrary to a local bakers’ agreement that set a standard price for a loaf of bread – George Weston left the bakers' association and lowered his prices. In retaliation, the competition dropped what they charged at the wholesale level in an apparent[9] attempt to fill store shelves with their bread. In spite of the price war, the Model Bakery continued to expand production such that a year later business had increased by 78 percent. Less than two years later, George Weston was selling his bread to 38 cities and towns beyond Toronto's borders.[10] By 1901, the factory's output had reached 10,000 large loaves a day and its bread was shipped to over 100 communities throughout Ontario.[11] By 1899, Weston had also established in the town of Oshawa, northeast of Toronto, a branch bakeshop, which he described as a "miniature Model Bakery", for the production of bread.[12]
While the Model Bakery established George Weston as Canada's biggest baker, he had already begun to move beyond bread into other lines of baked goods. By 1897, he had set up a separate shop for the making of cakes, crumpets, pastries and buns. Then, early in the new century, Weston began making biscuits and sodas. While the bread business was very competitive and typically low margin, biscuits offered higher margins. Within a few years, the Model Bakery had a dozen salesmen taking orders for Weston's biscuits from merchants throughout Ontario. In promoting his new vanilla wafer biscuits, Weston employed a form of early direct marketing. From a decorative bread wagon, salesmen handed out free samples of the new biscuits and told housewives to ask for them at their grocer's.
In 1901, George Weston merged with J.L. Spink, a flour mill operator at Pickering, Ontario, to form the Model Bakery Company. The amalgamation soon raised concerns, though, that the new partnership would result in higher bread prices. In a letter to local newspapers, Weston tried to allay fears of a "Bread Trust" and asserted that rather than an attempt to destroy competition that the merger would reduce the price of bread by cutting out the middleman's profit: ... we are believers in honest competition. Some bakers are endeavouring to fill the minds of the grocers, and the public in general, with the fact that we intend to get control of the bread baking business for the purpose of raising the price of bread to consumers. Now, I wish to give this a straight denial. By the amalgamation of these two concerns, the mill and the bakery, we are going to lessen our expenses, and the public are going to reap the advantage.[13] Weston further contended that the new venture would ensure the very choicest flour for the Model Bakery and its bread. But while the Weston-Spink partnership lasted five years, for reasons unknown it was eventually dissolved and the baker and miller went their separate ways.
