The winners of the CFA’s Awards of Excellence share what makes their systems spectacular
By Joelle Kidd
Each year at the Canadian Franchise Association (CFA) National Convention, two brands take home the Awards of Excellence Grand Prize distinction—one of the most prestigious awards in Canadian franchising. What makes this honour so significant is that it’s based on feedback from the system’s own franchisees. Franchisee satisfaction is truly the most telling marker of a system’s success, reflecting the winning brands’ high standards in leadership, operations, and franchisee relationships.
This year, the CFA was pleased to present the honour to McDonald’s Restaurants of Canada in the Traditional Franchise category (franchises with brick-and-mortar locations) and EverLine Coatings & Services in the Non-Traditional Franchise category (remote, mobile, or home-based businesses).
Franchise Canada spoke with representatives of the two brands to learn how they support franchisee success, the innovations they’ve brought to their systems, and what’s next for their brands in 2025 and beyond.
Grand Prize – Traditional Franchise
McDonald’s Restaurants of Canada
“Our support starts from the moment an applicant begins their extensive training program and continues throughout their life cycle as a franchisee,” says Kerry Boarder, National Franchising Director at McDonald’s Restaurants of Canada. That’s why it was such an honour to receive the CFA’s Award of Excellence, she says: “it reflects our franchisees’ opinions and recognition of the world-class support they receive from McDonald’s.”
With more than 1,400 locations in Canada alone, McDonald’s is an undeniably iconic brand. But more than that, their franchising model means that each McDonald’s owner is personally connected to their respective community.
“Over 90 per cent of our restaurants are owned and operated by a network of hard-working small-business franchisees who give back to their local communities and care deeply about the people they serve,” Boarder says.
An ideal McDonald’s franchisee is “a well-rounded individual,” says Boarder. McDonald’s franchisees have excellent interpersonal skills, leadership skills, are committed to following the brand’s proven systems, and are involved in their local community. “Alignment with McDonald’s values is crucial, embodying principles like integrity, service, family, community, and inclusion,” she adds. “Being a McDonald’s ‘brand fan’ shows genuine passion and dedication.”
When it comes to the day-to-day skills of running the business, the brand’s longevity and reach translate to “a world-class training program, perfected over many years,” Boarder explains. Combining classroom learning with practical restaurant experience, the extensive training program can be completed full-time or part-time and consists of a minimum of 1,600 hours—taking anywhere from nine months to two years to complete.
“The most successful franchisees are lifelong learners,” Boarder says, “constantly looking for ways to improve and grow both themselves and their business.”
Consistency is key to the success of a franchise. As a brand known all over the world, McDonald’s embodies this characteristic—“Across the globe, people know and love the great, comforting taste of a McDonald’s burger,” says Boarder. But she also points out that the brand has been able to adapt its menu to local preferences and tastes.
This blend of adaptability and consistency has fueled the brand’s success in Canada. In recent years, the brand has updated dining rooms with a more modern look and introduced new tech innovations, like ordering kiosks, as well as an expanded rewards program and delivery features on the McDonald’s app.
As the way customers buy their food shifts toward app-based delivery, locations have also begun adding a separate entrance and seating area for delivery couriers, with a separate delivery counter and a place for couriers to charge their phones. Innovations extend to the menu as well, with the brand introducing new items to meet guests’ changing dietary needs and food trends—most recently, they’ve introduced oat beverage as an option in coffee-based drinks and are testing a new veggie sandwich in select Canadian markets.
The brand has also maintained a commitment to Canadian sourcing. “We proudly source 85% of our products in Canada, with 100% of our beef, chicken, potatoes, fresh-cracked eggs, milk, and cream from Canadian farmers and growers,” Boarder says. More than 80 per cent of the brand’s food and paper products in the past year were sourced from Canadians suppliers and sourced ingredients from farms nationwide, she adds, with purchases totalling almost $2 billion.
“Cities, towns, people, and their needs never stop evolving, and neither do we,” says Boarder. “Being part of, and fostering, a community means growing and changing with it. That’s why we’re able to be so successful in Canada.”
Furthermore, the brand gives back to local communities through Ronald McDonald House Charities—a non-profit organization that provides housing for families who have to travel to access medical care for their children—and initiatives that address food insecurity. “It’s always been about much more than a burger to us. It’s about feeding and fostering the communities we operate in,” says Boarder.
Looking to the future, the brand will be focused on growth and cultivating new franchisee relationships, Boarder shares. “The demand for new franchisees is accelerating,” she says, noting that the brand aims to grow its footprint in Canada.
For prospective franchisees in any system, it’s important to choose an industry and business that you find genuinely exciting, says Boarder. “Success in franchising starts with passion.” Her advice for those starting their franchise journey? “Build strong relationships with fellow franchisees and your corporate support teams. Be transparent, ask for help when needed, and always stay curious.”
Grand Prize – Non-Traditional Franchise
EverLine Coatings & Services
“We work very hard to achieve excellence—in fact, our purpose statement for the franchisor team is to connect entrepreneurs with a best-in-class franchisor,” says John Evans, the brand’s founder and CEO. That’s why the Award of Excellence win was a source of “validation,” he says: “Not only the success of the franchisees, but industry recognition, all goes to show that we’re doing something right!”
EverLine specializes in parking lot painting, maintenance, and repair, mostly for commercial, industrial, and municipal clients. But what sets the brand apart is “not about painting the straightest lines or filling the best potholes,” Evans says. “It’s actually being the best partner.”
EverLine focuses on communication with both its clients and franchisees, Evans notes. On the client side, this means taking advantage of new technologies and innovative systems to make delivering their services as seamless as possible. For franchisees, the brand’s value-based culture creates a strong group of like-minded business owners who believe in the brand’s high standard of excellence, customer service, and communication.
Franchisees with the brand don’t necessarily need a pavement maintenance background, but Evans notes that expertise in finance and management make for valuable assets. “Our system is plug and play in the sense that, as long as the roles are being filled by the appropriate people, the results become predictable … the strongest performing franchisees are the ones who are strongest at being able to forecast, read financials, understand what’s going on in their business, understand their KPIs [key performance indicators], and then, of course, manage and help their team.”
As a brand, EverLine has been on the forefront of implementing new technologies. Recently, the brand has harnessed the power of AI to help improve efficiency for franchisees. “We are one of the first—and one of very few—franchisors that began implementing AI, not directly to clients, but for our franchisees [in order to] support them,” says Evans. This involved tapping a Canadian-based supplier, EZ Assist, to create an AI program that can answer franchisee questions 24 hours a day. The program “knows EverLine in and out,” and can help franchisees find answers to any question about operations or processes—“not only with day-to-day support questions, but to predict and analyze what they should be doing in their business at this moment, to rectify a KPI that’s off, or capture an opportunity,” Evans says.
“I think since we implemented it, something like 9,000 questions have been asked—that shaves off 9,000 email replies,” he notes.
The brand also recently acquired one of its vendors, which Evans explains has made supply chain management and ordering even easier for franchisees, as well as providing a more environmentally-friendly and durable traffic-marking product.
New franchisees receive 13 weeks of virtual training and a week of hands-on training to learn the ins and outs of the different tools and products available to them. Ongoing support includes business coaching using the Entrepreneurial Operating System (EOS) method, national accounts and increased buying power through the franchisor.
Alongside these supports, Evans notes that one of the benefits of the franchise is that it’s “virtually infinitely scalable.”
Franchisees with the system start off working remotely, at an accessible investment point. As the business grows, Evans explains, franchisees typically expand, hiring a team and finding an office or shop space to work from.
When asked why he estimates franchisee satisfaction to be so high within the brand, Evans says it stems from “the time and energy we spend to have genuine relationships with our franchisees.”
And the future looks bright for these franchisees. Six years in to franchising, some Canadian EverLine franchisees are now at the point of operating a large, mature business, Evans shares. “There’s an endless array of specialties and special projects, whether starting to work on airports or municipalities or what have you, that are large-ticket items that you have to have the experience to unlock. But now we have a whole bunch of franchisees that are starting to get to that stage, and we want to make it easier for them to run big businesses.”
As Evans says, “We haven’t seen a ceiling yet for what our franchisees are capable of.”
