Honey has run in Mélanie and Sandra Labonté’s veins from the start. Long before they were born, their grandparents founded a honey company for which their parents, Micheline and Simon Labonté, worked for many years, until they created their own business, Bonté Distribution inc., in 2004.
The following year, Mélanie joined the family business, and in 2007, she made her first share acquisition. In 2010, it was Sandra’s turn to enter Bonté Distribution to replace her sister during maternity leave. However, when Mélanie returned, Sandra decided to stay, and they restructured the division of tasks: Mélanie worked on the floor overseeing production and distribution, while Sandra focused on administration and accounting. Observing that her two daughters were managing the business exceptionally well, Micheline felt ready to sell them all her shares, and in 2012, she stepped down as a shareholder, remaining in Bonté Distribution’s employ. At that point, the two sisters became co-owners alongside their father.
A few years later, they gifted him a trip to Florida so he could take a well-deserved break after 50 years on the road distributing his products. When he returned, noticing Mélanie and Sandra were perfectly in control of daily operations, he decided to take another, longer absence. Ultimately, he informed his daughters that he had complete confidence in them as managers and was ready to sell them his shares. Together, Mélanie and Sandra repatriated the shares to finally become, in 2019, the only two shareholders of Bonté Distribution inc. “We feel a lot of pride in this buyout; our parents did this their whole lives, and we were brought up in it… We have a deep sense of belonging to the company,” Mélanie says emotionally. Unlike his wife, Simon retired as soon as his shares were sold, but he remained available to support Mélanie and Sandra in their numerous ventures, including automating their honey production line.
Their plans rapidly turned out to be much more ambitious than anticipated. During the COVID-19 pandemic, the supplier who manufactured their candies announced that he wanted to sell his company and retire immediately due to health issues. Confronted with this major pivot, Mélanie and Sandra made a bold choice: they would purchase the supplier’s business and handle confectionery production themselves, becoming fully autonomous! They acquired all of the equipment in December 2021, but it was located in the Sainte-Hyacinthe region. As of January 2022, Mélanie began working there full time to maintain production with the help of a few employees. With more freedom than ever to create new candy recipes, they can develop new products. Besides their own candies and lozenges, they’re now producing assorted confections for external clients. One challenge remains, however: unifying all their operations under one roof. To achieve this, Sandra and Mélanie must find a plot of land on which to build a 10,000-square-foot factory before December 15, 2022, the deadline by which they have to vacate the Sainte-Hyacinthe facility. After several months of intense work, this project was completed in under a year and the candy division moved to join the rest of the company at its new location in Victoriaville. That’s where their close-knit team of 13 employees now works—a group the co-owners consider their second family.
The sisters joke that visitors to the factory are often surprised not to see any men in charge, but the two female owners take pride in that: “There’s no masculinity here—just two women leading this crazy adventure!” With several new ideas on the horizon, it’s safe to say the meteoric rise of Bonté Distribution won’t be slowing down anytime soon.
bontedistribution.com
bontedistribution.com
