Our special guest for this episode is the dynamic Jake Karls, Co-Founder & Rainmaker of Quebec-based Mid-Day Squares. Based in Montreal, Mid-Day Squares is changing the afternoon snack game, one chocolate square at a time. Founders Nick, Lezlie and her brother Jake have raised $21 million and sold over one million chocolate bars in just under 20 months, but it's been anything but a conventional product launch and a smooth ride to success.We cover the latest Federal Budget and what was in it for the food business and talk about the passing of Bill C-234, an Act to amend the Greenhouse Gas Pollution Pricing Act, exempting on-farm use of the fuels from the carbon tax will save thousands of dollars for Canadian farmers who rely on natural gas and propane every day for their essential operations, which was adopted with 176 votes for and 146 against. Of particular note, the Canadian Agriculture Minister voted against the private member's bill, leaving many to wonder who has Farmer's back in Ottawa. We discuss the Agri-Food Analytics Lab's latest research on consumers perceptions of grocers, and lastly, we talk turkey or ham for Easter dinner, and speaking of meat, Eat Just's cultured meat product gets a vital letter from the U.S. FDA, but the cold shoulder in Italy.  About JakeJake Karls is the co-founder and Chief Rainmaker at Mid-Day Squares. Building the next biggest chocolate snacking brand.  As the Rainmaker, Jake focuses on achieving growth through the business of building genuine relationships – with investors, buyers, journalists, and building out the internal team. In Jake’s better-known role as  Mid-Day Squares’s resident Social-Personality, he passionately inspires others to “get comfortable with the uncomfortable” and be unapologetically themselves. Though he was recognized as an EY Entrepreneur of the Year Finalist and named in the Forbes 30 Under 30 class of 2023, his self-proclaimed “greatest accomplishment” was learning how to be confident in himself. 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'