Welcome to the first of several special SIAL bonus episodes of The Food Professor podcast!Sylvain and I were thrilled to be the official podcast of the SIAL food innovation trade show held in Montreal in April; for many, the first in-person event since the COVID era began two years ago.We had the opportunity to meet and get to know many food innovators and entrepreneurs, creators and makers from many facets of the food industry.   These are their stories. Thanks for joining us on this special bonus episode of The Food Professor.  Stay tuned for plenty of great interviews from our podcast studio on the trade show floor in Montreal at SIAL, and stay tuned for our regular full length episodes available on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google - wherever you enjoy your podcasts today.  About Meera SunnyDirector of Research & Development and Ingredient Sales, CanMar FoodsPassionate and business-oriented food science fanatic with working knowledge of food product development, alt proteins, food 3D printing, molecular biology, agriculture, nutrition, market research, QA and ingredient salesAbout CanMar FoodsThink Big. Think Saskatchewan’s Flax.CanMar Foods is the largest processor of food-grade flax in Canada and North America. We clean, roast, mill, package, and ship our roasted flax and roasted hemp seeds to consumers and wholesalers around the world.  Watch to learn more about CanMar and how we’re leading flax production in Saskatchewan.Shop CanMar on Amazonhttps://amzn.to/3w5au6rAbout UsDr. Sylvain CharleboisDr. 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.Michael LeBlanc  is the Founder & President of M.E. LeBlanc & Company Inc and a Senior Advisor to Retail Council of Canada as part of his advisory and consulting practice.   He brings 25+ years of brand/retail/marketing & eCommerce leadership experience, and has been on the front lines of retail industry change for his entire career.  Michael is the producer and host of a network of leading podcasts including Canada’s top retail industry podcast,       The Voice of Retail, plus  Global E-Commerce Tech Talks  ,      The Food Professor  with Dr. Sylvain Charlebois and now in its second season, Conversations with CommerceNext!  You can learn more about Michael   here  or on     LinkedIn. Be sure and check out Michael's latest adventure for fun and influencer riches - Last Request Barbecue,  his YouTub