Episode Details

Sylvain gets pretty worked up about Nestle's decision to exit the freezer section with their pizzas and other frozen staples, the latest report from the AgriFoods lab on the cashless economy, Canadian dairy in the dumps, and we visit the discount grocery store sector. Finally, a bit of trouble for our friend Yanick Gervais at Olymel, who is closing some processing plants

We get the "T" from our extraordinary guest Shabnam Weber, President of the Tea and Herbal Association of Canada, and a special announcement about the show!

About Shabnam

For almost two decades, Shabnam Weber owned and operated her own tea company in Toronto, Canada. With retail stores and a wholesale business, her company was one of the first of its kind in Toronto.  Her passion and love of tea led her to become involved with the Tea and Herbal Association of Canada as a Director, sitting on a number of committees, most notably the Education Committee where she wrote the Tea Sommelier® program.

Shabnam divested from her business’ and took the position of President of the Tea and Herbal Association of Canada in 2018. She has transformed the association through the programs and resources it offers members and become an industry leader. She is the Canadian representative on the UN FAO’s Intergovernmental Group on Tea where she sits on a number of working groups as well as being the Vice-Chair of the working group on Smallholders and co-Chair of the working group on Tea and Health.

Through her time as an entrepreneur and her industry involvement for over twenty years, she has a unique perspective on multiple angles of the business advocating for all.  Shabnam values the diversity offered by all parts of the tea industry, both in Canada and beyond and focuses always on the bigger picture. 

About Us

Dr. 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 Michael

Michael 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