Premium Canadian deli brand achieves top honours as a national business leader, focusing on mental health conversations and people-first practices

LANGLEY, BC, Dec. 9, 2020 /CNW/ – Freybe Gourmet Foods today announced they have been recognized as a Best Employer, Canada, as part of Kincentric’s Best Employers global certification. The program measures and recognizes leading employers who capture the full power of their people to drive results and create sustainable competitive advantage. Freybe scored 85% for overall engagement, placing them in the top quartile of all participating companies across North America. The engagement score is a measure of the emotional and intellectual involvement that motivates employees to do their best work.

“Being recognized as a Kincentric Top Employer in Canada is a huge honour and a reflection of the dedicated and passionate work of our entire team,” says Sven Freybe, CEO of Freybe Gourmet Foods. “It shows how our focus on culture and values-based decision making translates to a profitable, stable business.” Top scoring dimensions for Freybe included empowerment to test and try new ideas, being results-focused, and an orientation towards long-term business sustainability. When asked whether they would describe Freybe as being caring and people oriented, 100% of the Freybe respondents were favourable. Freybe is a participant in ‘Not Myself Today’, a unique workplace mental health initiative proven to generate strong, positive impact in companies of all sizes and sectors. Run by the Canadian Mental Health Association, it is evidence-based and focused on practical solutions.

“Our prioritization of mental health awareness and support is crucial to the wellbeing of our team and our overall business success,” says Angela Doro, Vice President of Marketing and Operations. “We’re proud to be leading the meat industry as we create space and awareness for these important conversations. The survey was distributed to the team in the middle of one of the hardest years imaginable due to the COVID-19 pandemic. But we didn’t want to shy away from the opportunity to ask everyone ‘How are we doing?’ even under the most extreme of circumstances. We have particular admiration for our front-line workers who are ensuring products get to our customers so that Canadians across the country have uninterrupted access to the foods they want.”

With 20 years of experience in Best Employer certification across the world, backed by over 50 years of employee research and a robust global database, the Kincentric Best Employers certification compares organizations to identify those that strive to continuously inspire their people, spark change and accelerate business success. To achieve recognition through the Kincentric Best Employers certification, Freybe Gourmet Foods was assessed on four measures:

1. Employee Engagement: Employees speak positively about their employer, intend to stay and are motivated to exert extra effort at work.
   
   
2. Organizational Agility: Employees see that the organization is highly adaptive, innovative, inclusive and responsive to the changing needs of its customers.
   
   
3. Engaging Leadership: Leaders are deeply connected with employees to drive engagement, communicate a clear vision and exert strong personal values.
   
   
4. Talent Focus: Employees see that the organization is focusing on attracting and retaining great talent and creating an inspirational environment where people can thrive.

The full list of this year’s honourees can be found at kincentric.com.

About Freybe Gourmet Foods
Freybe Gourmet Foods is Canada’s leading brand for premium quality Germanic deli specialties and snack foods such as salami, pâté, hams, sausages, and pepperoni sicks. Since 1844, Freybe has won over 425 international gold medals for our dry cure products. Freybe’s mission is to connect people through the love of great food, and we’re passionate about helping our consumers master the art of moment-making through the products we create. Freybe has been part of the Premium Brands group of companies since 2013. For more information, please visit freybe.com.

About Premium Brands
Premium Brands owns a broad range of leading specialty food manufacturing and differentiated food distribution businesses with operations across Canada, the United States and Italy. For more information, please visit premiumbrandsholdings.com.

About Kincentric
Kincentric, a Spencer Stuart company, approaches human capital differently — we help you identify what drives your people, so they can drive your business. Formerly a part of Aon, our decades of expertise in culture and engagement, leadership assessment and development, and HR and talent advisory services enable us to help organizations change from the inside. And our global network of colleagues, our proven insights and our intuitive technologies give us new ways to help organizations unlock the power of people and teams — fostering change and accelerating success. For more information, please visit kincentric.com.

For further information: Michelle Harper, Marketing Director, Freybe Gourmet Foods, mharper@freybe.com, 604-908-0794