Welcome to The Food Professor podcast Season Three, episode 22, with your host Michael LeBlanc coming to you from Barcelona, where he’s attending the World Retail Congress. Michael is joined by Sylvain and special guest Colleen Martin, Chief Revenue Officer at Caddle, who is here to discuss a custom study commissioned by the lab, which is all about plant-based foods and beverages and the latest consumer insights.In this episode, Michael and Sylvain bring you the latest news from the agri-food industry, including the PSAC strike and its implications, food inflation numbers for March, and an article in the New Republic that explores the lobbying battle between big ag and lab-grown meat.Later, the focus shifts to plant-based foods and beverages, and Colleen shares some valuable insights from the custom study commissioned by the lab. We discuss the rising popularity of plant-based options, the factors driving consumer preferences, and how brands can appeal to this growing market.Before wrapping up, Michael reminds listeners that The Food Professor podcast will be at the SIAL food innovation show in Toronto from May 9-11th as the official podcast of the event. So, be sure to stop by their podcast studio and say hi!And finally, they end the episode by discussing the new Oatly website, which chronicles every bad thing that has ever been said about them and plant-based beverages. It’s an exciting approach to transparency and shows how brands adapt to consumer demands for ethical and sustainable products.Don’t miss this exciting episode of The Food Professor podcast.About ColleenColleen Martin is the Chief Revenue Officer (CRO) at Caddle and is passionate about customer-centric retail, marketing strategies, and omnichannel retail technology. Colleen has been working in the Retail industry for close to 25 years with a proven track record in growing businesses by providing strategic direction and leadership to merchandising and marketing teams. You can connect on LinkedIn or at colleen.martin@caddle.ca. 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, Blac