In 1986, a local Montreal committee member was looking for someone to cut and prepare meat for one of their festivals. Luck would have it that a father on the committee asked his son to help. The eager, young man, Dennis Papakostas, (and now the founder and CEO of Expresco) volunteered to fill this position. Dennis created ExpressSouvlaki and served his hand-made skewers out of a festival pop-up structure. This led the way for him to build Expresco into the business it is today.
Still in college and following his festival stint, Dennis Papakostas purchased a 500-square store front and continued his ExpressSouvlaki business. One day while eating in his college cafeteria, Dennis began to wonder how the school got its meat and the next thing you know ExpressSouvlaki was supplying the foodservice vendor as well as many other Montreal establishments.
One sale led to another and in 2004 Papakostas acquired a new plant space and renamed the company Expresco Foods. With this new state-of-the-art facility and adherence to rigorous quality standards, Expresco expanded its product line while attaining Canada and US distribution. Today, Expresco serves the foodservice, retail and deli industry across North America.
For over 30 years we have been committed to creating high quality, protein-rich, value-added meal and snack solutions. As a custom manufacturer of fully cooked grilled protein products, we are constantly improving our processes to provide our customers with the best experience possible. Our continuous improvements delve into every aspect of product development such as capital investments in equipment, cleaner ingredients, environmental swabbing, sales-driven marketing programs, cross-functional collaborative teams and greater supply chain optimization. Our success is our customer’s success!
Our SQF level 3 approved facility guarantees a strict manufacturing, risk-based preventative and best critical practices process. Each production step is carefully monitored and analyzed by our vigilant cross-departmental team of experts led by our Quality Assurance specialists. Every product is subject to a mandatory third party micro testing that includes a fully cooked product hold and release program. As a result, all of our products comply with Health Canada/Canadian government and USA standards. Together this ensures traceability from procurement to consumer.
We are enthusiastic about creating top-quality products while managing our resource base for future generations in our state-of-the-art facility. Some of the measures we have taken are: improved waste management and reduced carbon footprint, recyclable-only packaging material, enhanced water consumption policy, reduced noise emissions, unused meat recycled to local rendering facility, and adherence to animal welfare practices.