Complete Retail Solutions Inc. (CRS), an alliance of four Peterborough companies, received the Best of Show award for their booth at Grocery Innovations Canada, the country’s largest grocery show held October 17 and 18 in Toronto.
The award recognizes the innovative concept behind CRS, which creates and markets complementary products and services — such as retail checkouts, service counters, signage, and digital analytics — under a single national brand.
CRS involves four companies all located in Peterborough:
- Pan-Oston (660 Neal Dr., Peterborough) — the driving force behind CRS — is a leading Canadian manufacturer of fixtures such as check-out counters and custom fixtures for the retail trade.
- OPTiFi is an analytics company that uses a patented method for wirelessly sensing and anonymously registering smartphones that come into a zone in a retail store, creating aggregate data patterns of what all those people do and how they move around an area over periods of time.
- TechniLite Systems (300 Milroy Dr., Peterborough) designs and manufactures retail and commercial display LED and T5 lighting systems, outdoor signs, back-lit and edge-lit signs and panels. TechniLite has supplied products for Macy’s and Harrods.
- Woodarts (532 Chemong Rd., Peterborough) specializes in custom cabinetry and millwork fixtures for retail operations such as the LCBO and banks (as well as government including Queen’s Park and the Library of Parliament in Ottawa).
CRS has already provided a complete solution for the front area of a new Coppa’s Fresh Market store in King City, as well as another food retailer in British Columbia, and kiosks for mobile provider Koodo.
The concept has also garnered international interest from other partners, including Southern CaseArts, a leading specialty refrigerated and hot food display case manufacturer from Alabama.
“We quickly realized the potential for Complete Retail Solutions to represent us in Canada,” says Southern CaseArts Executive VP Dan McMurray. “Pan-Oston and CRS had the potential to handle and service our specialty showcases for all of Canada. They had solid relationships with customers and a well-established service network across the country.”
Southern CaseArts recently completed its first project for Yummy Market, a speciality food store in Toronto.
“Our first project for Yummy Market Toronto proved this does work,” McMurray says. “We were able to work closely with our partners in Peterborough. They (Woodarts) were able to provide the millwork finishes, we made matching refrigerated fixtures, and we were able to put the whole project together and provide a turnkey solution for their produce department in a seamless manner.”
CRS’s award-winning booth at Grocery Innovations Canada provides an example of some of the complementary products and services the alliance is creating. Much of what they do from Peterborough will be seen in retail stores in Vancouver, Toronto, Las Vegas, and New York, as well as in smaller markets.
“It’s amazing to see this type of leading edge work coming from right in our own back yard in Peterborough,” says Greg Butler, President of Pan-Oston/Complete Retail Solutions.
