Provigo founder passes away

Antoine Turmel, the key founder of Provigo in 1970 has died in Quebec at the age of 94.

Born in Thetford Mines in 1918 Turmel joined Compagnie Denault Ltée  in 1945 as sales manager and later took over control of the company,  which he built into a major grocery wholesaling company supplying  many stores.

In 1969 he negotiated the merger of three independent food wholesaling companies (Denault Ltée, Couvrette et Provost, and  Lamontagne Ltée) to form Provigo Inc, which at the time was one of  the largest food distributors in Canada.

Turmel was considered one of Quebec's and Canada's  most entrepreneurial businessmen.

He retired from Provigo in 1985 and sat on the boards of the  National Bank of Canada, Canadian General Electric, Noranda Inc,  Québec-Téléphone, Shell Canada, UAP Inc, Canada Development  Investment Inc. and Groupe La Laurientienne.

He received an honorary  doctorate from the University of Sherbrooke and in 1982 became an Officer of the Order of Canada.