Tim Hortons president touring across country to regain trust

TARA DESCHAMPS

Tim Hortons is ready to make amends.

President Alex Macedo has been criss-crossing the country over the past few days, meeting with thousands of franchisees in a bid to regain their trust and convince them that the fast food giant is committed to improving its strained relationship with some owners.

His tour comes after months of public sparring with a dissident franchisee group over everything from cost-cutting measures to delays in supply deliveries to a $700-million renovation plan that they say will cost store owners $450,000 per restaurant.

“We can’t pretend everything is good or that we did all the right things. We could have done a few things better,” he said in an interview with The Canadian Press.

“The last three months have been very difficult for the brand ... We definitely don’t like to be in the media with controversies and business issues with our restaurant owners ... It is difficult to break from the clutter, but we have decided to communicate better.”

Macedo’s message signals a shift in the company’s approach to addressing the Great White North Franchisee Association, which says it represents at least half of the brand’s Canadian owners and whose vocal opposition to the company’s strategy has been a thorn in its side since the group formed last year.

The previous approach of Tim Hortons and parent company Restaurant Brands International had largely been to ignore the disgruntled franchisees.

He said he has spoken to members represented by the association in his visits to Toronto, Montreal and Halifax and will encounter more of them in Vancouver this week.

The meetings are usually arranged at large hotels and include an evening reception and four-hour discussion that Macedo says is drawing attendance rates around 100 per cent.

The franchisee association has backed class-action lawsuits filed by franchisees over the company’s alleged improper use of a $700-million national advertising fund.

It wrote to Navdeep Bains, the federal innovation minister, earlier this year, alleging that RBI failed to live up to promises made under the Investment Canada Act in 2014.

The group did not immediately respond to request for comment Thursday.