Today I got up late - somewhere around nine. I had a muffin and some Shaklee protein powder for breakfast and worked on some odds and ends. Laundry too.

Marie and I then headed out for Dorval so that I could visit Michel De Garie. Michel is the purchaser for Satau, a natural and organic foods distributor since 1981, catering strictly to independent (and ‘values’ driven) stores in Ottawa, Quebec and the Maritimes. Satau was a customer of mine when I was handling transportation and logistics for a company I worked for in the late 90’s - DSL Distribution. Michel purchased product from Nature’s Path Foods, for whom DSL did the warehousing.

I had worked with Michel to create an efficient and ecologically sensitive supply chain strategy - which involved combining one load of high density beverage product from Oregon with one load of lighter density cereal product from Delta, BC. I arranged for manipulation of the two separate loads into one 53 foot high-cube intermodal container – allowing the products to travel together for the 4800 kilometre journey from Vancouver, BC to Dorval, QC via CN Rail – thus reducing energy consumption, and the creation of greenhouse gases - and saving money to top it off.

Michel was also an ‘enviro-mentor’ of sorts, giving me a real insight to the natural and organic food market - and the growing array of products hitting store shelves in the late 90’s as people became more aware of issues with genetically modified foods and crops.

I was impressed with the small facility that Satau have - which itself is able to handle all the products that are supplied to over 500 regular customers. The warehouse was very clean and well organized. Pictured below is Renato Perpignani (Satau’s owner) (L) and Michel De Garie (R).

After departing from Satau, Marie and I visited around Montreal, making stops here and there, and giving me a flavour of what being in Montreal is like. And yes, we enjoyed some flavours too - taking in some Montreal bagels at a smart dealer and a Montreal smoked meat sandwich and orange julius right beside it. Orange was the flavour of the day it appears.

Afterwards, we went back to Boucherville and had dinner, and now I’m working on getting the site updated before traveling to Ottawa in the AM - where I will get a chance to see a smart forfour for the first time.