Episode Details

Welcome to the The Food Professor podcast episode 11, I’m Michael LeBlanc, and I’m Sylvain Charlebois!

Tilling the rich media soil: 1 in 5 Canadians started gardening during the pandemic - Sylvain take us through the latest research results from the Dalhousie Agri-Foods lab, and what does this mean for grocers and 2021?

A chilling (or is that Chile) tale of food fraud: talk about the organic raspberry scandal, the scale and scope of food fraud of this sort overall, what your/the Lab's role was in the detective work and any lessons learned on how to catch these criminals

Our special guest: Tareq Hadhad CEO and Founder of Peace by Chocolate!  We talk to Tareq  about his family’s story that is nothing short of incredible. An amazing journey of love and hope chronicled in the new book, Peace By Chocolate.

We ask Tareq how has his experience influenced how he runs the company in Antigonish, Nova Scotia,  about how PBC has gone to market, and about the process getting onto the shelves at specialty retailers and a major Canadian retailer like Sobeys

Sylvain wants to know what is so special about Syrian chocolate? What’s unique about the products?

Next we talk about the Federal Government moving to ban single use plastics - what comes next for the restaurant and take-out sector

And Sylvain remembers the late Percy Schmeiser as we discuss the new movie Percy, staring one of my fav. actors Christopher Walkin about a Saskatchewan farmer, canola and Monsanto

Other movies about farmers:

Field of Dreams

Interstellar

The Martian
 

Finally a Sneak Peek: Canadians shopping and paying for local produce - next study release from the Agri-Food Analytics Lab and Supply Chain 2.0!

******

If you liked what you heard you can subscribe on Apple iTunes , Spotify or your favourite podcast platform, please rate and review, and be sure and recommend to a friend or colleague in the grocery, foodservice,  or restaurant industry.    I’m Michael LeBlanc, producer and host of The Voice of Retail podcast and a bunch of other stuff, and I’m Sylvain Charlebois!

Have a safe week everyone!

About Us

Dr. Sylvain Charlebois is a Visiting Professor in Food Policy and Distribution at McGill University and a Professor in Food Distribution and Policy in the Faculty of Management at Dalhousie University in Halifax. He is also the Senior Director of the Agri-food Analytics Lab, also located at Dalhousie University.

Known as “The Food Professor”, his current research interest lies in the broad area of food distribution, security and safety. He is one of the world’s most cited scholars in food sup