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CANADIAN INDUSTRY ONLINE - OCTOBER 2013
S
OME OF THE
best businesses
in Canada start by accident—
such is the story of Stephano Group.
Originally Stephano’s Bakery,
a family business that began selling
baked granola products in the Ottawa
Valley, the Stephano Group is now a
high-quality cereal manufacturer with
a new modern production facility in
North York.
Stephano’s products, 35 years
after inception, are now offered in fine
food stores across Ontario. The whole-
some (and very tasty) line-up includes
a variety of granolas, like coco mango,
chunky hemp, and honey raisin bran.
The company also offers its original
yogurt parfaits and ready serve oat-
meals.
A RICH HISTORY OF TASTE
Noah Frank, one of founders Ste-
ven Frank and Annette Blaeske’s two
sons, has been involved in the business
for several years now (Sean Frank,
Noah’s brother, is the fourth family
member in the business). According
to Frank, his parents were running a
general store and noticed a gap in the
natural and bulk food stores for muesli
and granola. “Lots of these products at
the time were warehoused and weren’t
fresh, whereas my parents made it
fresh each week,” Frank recalls. Ul-
timately, the concept for Stephano’s
granola was to take the best quality in-
gredients available on the market and
manufacture them by hand to offer
the best quality product. “My parents
thought it was a good business oppor-
tunity, but didn’t realize it would take
off to the extent it did—the products
really fill a niche in the market,” Frank
says. Over the years, the Stephano
name got around, and the business
grew. “Once the company picked
up a large account, we realized that
we would need a better capacity for
manufacturing,” Franks says, though
originally the family hadn’t intended
to open a plant.
But the products spoke for them-
selves, and customers kept coming
back. So the Frank sons got involved
in the business. “People just kept com-
ing to us for our product, whereas lots
“
Lots of these products at the time were warehoused and weren’t
fresh, whereas my parents made it fresh each week.”
STEPHANO GROUP
