Episode Details

On our first solo episode of the season, Sylvain and I are together live in person for a wide-ranging conversation, starting with China cloning super dairy cows to 18,000 dairy cows perishing at South Fork Dairy in Texas and celebrating cannabis 4-20. 

China claims they have cloned super cows, and we talk about Olymel's plant closure and what it means to the people in Quebec and Canada's hog industry. The Competition Bureau has published its Annual Plan, so we discuss the merits of their work; April 22 is Earth Day. Should we still care about that one day? Mcdonald's is updating their Big Mac, and this week is 4-20, a high holiday amongst the cannabis community - we talk about Sylvain's assessment of the industry from an agriculture crop perspective. Lastly, we celebrate Sylvain's new media gig with Quebec and probably Canada's, most watch morning show, TVA's Salut, Bonjour.

A reminder that we'll be in person together again pretty soon at the SIAL food innovation show in Toronto, May 9-11th. We're the show's official podcast, so be sure and stop by the fishbowl and say hi!

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 brings 25+ years of brand/retail/marketing & eCommerce leadership experience with Levi's, Black & Decker, Hudson's Bay, Today's Shopping Choice and Pandora Jewellery.   

Michael has been on the front lines of retail industry change for his entire career. He has delivered keynotes, hosted fire-side discussions with C-level executives and participated worldwide in thought leadership panels. 

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