This week on The Food Professor podcast, we dive into the latest news - hot off the grill!Maple Leaf Foods is set to buy a selection of Canadian pig farms so we dig into what this backward integration means for the company from a strategic lens. We discuss consumer trends in the meat industry and Canada’s “trifecta” of proteins.As it turns out - the kids aren’t alright. Sylvain voices his concerns about Britain’s intervention in marketing high-sugar and high-fat products to children. We talk about the fine line between oversight and overreach, and reflect on Canada’s efforts to regulated marketing in the food industry.Join us for part one of our two part exclusive interview with Diane J. Brisebois, President and CEO of Retail Council of Canada, one of the biggest trade associations in the country representing retailers coast-to-coast including the grocery sector.  In part one we meet Diane and get to know her background, the organization's mandate and tradecraft, and important role in the political process and in Canadian's lives. Stay tune for part two of our interview in our next episode when we dive into grocery specific issues like the Code of Conduct!Finally, the latest data on Canada’s demographics are reflecting some serious shifts in population growth. We talk about the impacts that this will have on the grocery sector and investigate solutions. If you listen until the end, you’ll get the first look at the political party that we’re starting. You can’t miss some of the hilarious names that we come up with!
About UsDr. Sylvain Charlebois is a Professor in food distribution and policy in the Faculties of Management and Agriculture at Dalhousie University in Halifax. He is also the Senior Director of the Agri-food Analytics Lab, also located at Dalhousie University. Before joining Dalhousie, he was affiliated with the University of Guelph’s Arrell Food Institute, which he co-founded. Known as “The Food Professor”, his current research interest lies in the broad area of food distribution, security and safety. Google Scholar ranks him as one of the world's most cited scholars in food supply chain management, food value chains and traceability.He has authored five books on global food systems, his most recent one published in 2017 by Wiley-Blackwell entitled “Food Safety, Risk Intelligence and Benchmarking”. He has also published over 500 peer-reviewed journal articles in several academic publications. Furthermore, his research has been featured in several newspapers and media groups, including The Lancet, The Economist, the New York Times, the Boston Globe, the Wall Street Journal, Washington Post, BBC, NBC, ABC, Fox News, Foreign Affairs, the Globe & Mail, the National Post and the Toronto Star.Dr. Charlebois sits on a few company boards, and supports many organizations as a special advisor, including some publicly traded companies. Charlebois is also a member of the Scientific Council of the Business Scientific Institute, based in Luxemburg. Dr. Charlebois is a member of the Global Food Traceability Centre’s Advisory Board based in Washington DC, and a member of the National Scientific Committee of the Canadian Food Inspection Agency (CFIA) in Ottawa.About MichaelMichael is the Founder & President of M.E. LeBlanc & Company Inc. and a Senior Advisor to Retail Council of Canada and the Bank of Canada as part of his advisory and consulting practice. He brings 25+ years of brand/retail/marketing & eCommerce leadership experience with Levi's, Black & Decker, Hudson's Bay, Today's Shopping Choice and Pandora Jewellery.Michael has been on the front lines of retail industry change for his entire career. He has delivered keynotes, hosted fire-side discussions with C-level executives and participated worldwide in thought leadership panels. ReThink Retail has added Michael to their prestigious Top Global Retail Influencers list for 2024 for the fourth year in a row.Michael is also the president of Maven Media, producing a network of