Suzanne Aubry – Growing Lassonde’s business across North America
Every leading woman in Canada was once a little girl wondering how she was going to make it in this big big world. To celebrate International Women’s Day, Foodbuy Canada spoke with Suzanne Aubry, the newly appointed North American Vice President of Food Service Sales for Lassonde.
Suzanne Aubry, North American Vice President of Food Service Sales for Lassonde
A North American-based juice manufacturer over 107 years old, Lassonde’s 2700 employees operate 24 plants and offices in 4 Canadian Provinces and 8 States in the US. In her new role, Ms. Aubry is spearheading the development of an ambitious strategy to expand the Food service segment across North America. “As a long-established and proudly Canadian company, our businesses in Canada and the U.S. couldn’t be more different. In Canada, we have strong brand awareness, while in the U.S., our business is almost entirely private label. While that might seem like a challenge, we see it as an opportunity—leveraging the strengths of each market to drive growth in the other. Our first step in this strategy is officially launching our Canadian food service brand, Fairlee, at the upcoming National Restaurant Association show in Chicago.”
Growing up, Suzanne originally planned on becoming a teacher, but after taking some electives in hospitality management, she found she really liked it and more than that, she sensed she had a talent. Taking a sales rep job out of school at a local food company in Montreal proved that, and a few years later, moving steadily through progressively larger roles, Suzanne grew. From Smucker’s, to Kellogg’s, then to a food broker, she found a home at Pepsi Canada.
“I learned a lot at Pepsi. The experience really solidified things for me. I sat on the Diversity Advisory Board and was mentored by the President at the time. I was exposed to a lot of various corporate experiences at Pepsi that really built a solid foundation at a high level, allowing me to propel my career further forward.”
From there, Suzanne moved to the SAQ to run Foodservice, Retail and Private imports. “I really enjoyed working there and seriously who wouldn’t? It’s a fantastic company, a fun segment (wine and spirits) and I got to manage a $2 billion business.”
In 2010, Suzanne was promoted to oversee SAQ’s stores with over 3000 unionized employees.
“Beyond navigating the daily obstacles that come along with managing the sales and operations of hundreds of retail stores, there is an entirely different layer of challenges when it comes to unions. I have enormous respect for people who manage unions and unionized employees. Being a female leader in a majority male unionized environment certainly helped me develop problem solving muscles. It was a time of tremendous learning and even more deep breathing!”
Where the Personal and Professional Collide
While holding down this huge role at the SAQ, Suzanne’s mother unexpectedly passed away. “When my mother passed it changed my world. From one second to the next, everything shattered in that one moment. It made me reevaluate my entire life and even many years later, I still miss my mom every single day.”
“I had the big corner office in one of the most beautiful and prestigious buildings in Montreal. I had three admins, ten directors, 20 district managers. It was my absolute dream job, but it and my life at that time couldn’t coexist and I had to make one of the hardest decisions of my life: I stepped back to take care of my health and my family.
Even so many years later, I remember sitting in the parking lot trying to compose myself before going into the building. The hardest part of leaving was not about missing the work conditions with the compensation and the fantastic advantages. No – the hardest part was leaving my boss, friend and mentor Catherine Dagenais. She understood why I had to hit pause. As much as I admire her as a friend and incredibly talented business leader, she’s an even better person. Not surprisingly, she later became president of the SAQ for two terms.”
“Recently, she was speaking at a leadership conference in Montreal, and she spotted me from the stage – I saw a huge smile come across her face as our eyes met. After she finished speaking, she ran off the stage straight toward me and after we hugged and caught up for a second, she stood back, held my shoulders and said, “Suzanne! It looks like you found your way! I am so proud of you!!”
“Why do people become successful? It is because of talent, sure, but also because of brilliant, unselfish, heartfelt leaders like Catherine lifting people like me up higher than they believe they can go and then watching them fly. Her mentorship helped me enormously and is instrumental in my being where I am today. I learned what type of leader I wanted to become because of her.”
When things stabilized with her family, Suzanne got a call from Lassonde and excitedly decided to get back in the game. “The funny thing was, it was for a director job, a step-down vs my previous positions, but in some strange way, I felt like I was coming home. I took over the Quebec role and 2 years later was promoted into the VP role to lead the country. I have now been at Lassonde for almost thirteen years, and yes, I do feel I found my place.”
We asked about the challenges she faced as a woman in foodservice she shared an unfortunate but memorable experience. “I will never forget my first days on the job. The person I was replacing pulled me aside and warned me not to wear a skirt when meeting a particular customer. I didn’t fully grasp the significance of that advice at the time. I was young, eager, and prepared for a professional, business-driven conversation. But in the meeting, the customer’s behavior turned wildly inappropriate, by sticking his tongue in my ear. I froze. Flustered and overwhelmed, I grabbed my binder and bolted out the door. I never told my boss. I never told anyone. Looking back, I know I would have handled it very differently today.
The world has changed. Young women now walk into the workplace armed with confidence, awareness, and the courage to push back. In 2025, I can’t imagine something like this going unnoticed—and if it did, I have no doubt today’s young women would know exactly how to respond.”
We asked Suzanne what advice she would give to women joining the foodservice and Hospitably sectors. “Know what you bring to the table and ground yourself in your worth and your value. Trust your inner voice and know when it’s time to go and grow into a new role. I can’t tell you when it happened…the moment I realized my identity shifted from me being ‘the pretty girl’ to being ‘the intelligent girl’, but if I could do it all over, I would want that shift to have happened much earlier. Lean into your strengths which means your intelligence, your resilience and your determination.”
Lassonde’s history is steeped in finding value hidden in plain sight. Over 100 years ago, founders Aristide Lassonde and his wife Georgianna Darcy helped local farmers make profitable use of their surplus crops. Suzanne builds her teams in the same way, “My passion is in finding and inspiring people to leverage hidden or underutilized talents. When I started in business, I was the only one in heels at trade shows in a team with less than 10% female representation. Today, we are more than 60% female and thriving.
We asked what she sees as her challenges looking forward. “I am looking forward to getting to know the US market, involving myself with production capabilities and understanding our supply chain. Supply chain has becoming as important as the relationships we build.”
The challenge of creating, launching, and managing a North America Business unit is a huge undertaking. It will have significant challenges along the way however, under Suzanne’s leadership, Lassonde will be certainly looking to grow.