It’s 2:30 a.m. when the first van pulls away from the loading dock. In a few hours, all 42 of its stops will be delivered, each one before the business in question opens. Outside, Montreal is still asleep. Inside the van, everything is already in motion.
Loading: Where Everything Is Decided Before the Wheels Even Turn
Loading always starts with a careful check. Nothing is left to chance, because a single late delivery can mean an empty shelf at 6 a.m., in a business counting on that order to open its doors on time.
What Gets Checked Before Departure
- Order forms, one by one, matched against what’s actually loaded
- The condition of the packaging, checked before the doors close
- The seals on the crates, so nothing shifts over the 42 stops ahead
A Route Planned to the Kilometer
Every route is optimized the day before, then adjusted in real time based on traffic and weather. The goal: never keep a customer waiting, even when Montreal wakes up under snow. The 42 stops are never covered in the same order two nights in a row; the route changes based on orders, street closures, sometimes even a simple traffic incident reported twenty minutes earlier. Winter raises the stakes even further: a storm can turn a 45-minute drive into nearly two hours, and that’s when the previous day’s planning gives way to minute-by-minute adjustments.
Around 4 a.m., half the route is done. Drivers exchange a few words with bakers already at the oven, load up the empty bins from the previous pass, and head straight to the next stop.
The Same Driver, the Same Address, Week After Week
It’s no accident that the same drivers most often return to the same businesses. A driver who already knows a bakery’s back entrance, the exact spot to drop the bins, or the precise time the baker will be there to open the door, saves precious time on every stop, time that adds up quickly over a 42-delivery route. That consistency also reassures the shop owner: they don’t have to re-explain their situation to a new face every week.
What Holds a Route Together
A night without a hitch is never an accident. Behind every route, a dispatcher tracks progress in real time and can reorganize a trip within minutes if a vehicle falls behind on a particular stop. It’s this invisible layer, more than the vehicle itself, that guarantees all 42 stops will be honored before daybreak.
The Last Stop, As If Nothing Happened
At 6:30 a.m., the last stop is delivered: shelves stocked, signature obtained, nobody sees a thing. That’s exactly the point: our customers should never have to think about logistics, night after night, route after route.