Welcome to The Food Professor Season three, episode 4!We recoding this episode live together in Toronto at T3 Sheraton hotel - great to be together again in person for the show!  First we start with a retrospect on the past two week discussion around grocery price freezes, and all the energy that went on in the media, industry, and government, and reflecting back on a particularly active week, what Sylvain takes away from all the discourse around the price of food, the people who sell it to consumers, and the people who sell it to the grocers?We also talk about  the tradeoffs between first mover advantage and owing an industry-wide issue - putting yourself in the front window so to speak. Our excellent guest interview is with Yanick Gervais, President ad CEO of Olymel, the Canadian leader in producing, processing and marketing pork and poultry meat, with 15,000 employees serving the Canadian market and exporting products to over 65 countries. They have over 30 plants in five Canadian provinces. We then head south for a few minutes and talk about big grocery mergers…specifically, Krogers and Albertsons $25 billion U.S. deal - together would have 710,000 workers, 5,000 stores and sales greater than $200 billion with a B.   Move it to No. 2 with 13.5% share versus Walmart’s 15.5%…What say you about the dynamics that created this deal, and thoughts on the likelihood that it will actually happen.  They will spin 400 stores and create a new rival to get past antitrust …Our excellent guest interview is with Yanick Gervais, President ad CEO of Olymel, the Canadian leader in producing, processing and marketing pork and poultry meat, with 15,000 employees serving the Canadian market and exporting products to over 65 countries. They have over 30 plants in five Canadian provinces. Lastly we talk about spooky halloween research, and Alberta's new premier and their agricultural sector. About YanickYanick Gervais was appointed President and CEO of Olymel on November 11, 2021. He succeeded Réjean Nadeau, who passed away on October 14 of the same year after leading the company for nearly a quarter of a century. When La Fernandière was acquired in 2016, Yanick Gervais joined Olymel and first became Vice President and General Manager of this new division, which focuses on the production of fresh sausages.In 2018, Yanick Gervais was appointed Senior Vice President, Operations, in addition to overseeing the Engineering and Logistics departments. In this capacity, he had the key responsibility to oversee the operations of more than 30 plants located mainly in Quebec, but also in four other Canadian provinces. Before joining Olymel, Yanick Gervais was co-owner and general manager of La Fernandière for over 10 years. He was the grandson of one of its founders.Trained as an accountant and tax specialist, Yanick Gervais previously worked with the accounting firm Dessureault, Leblanc, Lefebvre, C.A. from 2001 to 2005. He has been very active on various committees related to the chartered accountancy profession, particularly on training and recognition of the next generation of chartered accountants. Yanick Gervais volunteers for several charitable organizations and is very involved in his community. He holds a graduate diploma and a bachelor’s degree in accounting from the Université du Québec à Trois-Rivières, as well as a master’s degree in taxation (MTax) from the Université de Sherbrooke.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 schol