New School Food Program Gets The Grade, Olive Oil Squeeze, Avian Flu Dairy and guests James Crosby & Lori King, Crosby Foods

The Food Professor

In the latest episode of The Food Professor podcast, we explore the heart of Canadian food industry insights, with a particular focus on innovation and heritage.

The episode features James Crosby, President & CEO of Crosby Foods, a quintessential family-owned Canadian company from New Brunswick, and Lori King, who spearheads their innovation and marketing efforts. Crosby, representing the fifth generation of leadership within the company, discusses the evolution of Crosby Foods and its commitment to quality and innovation in a conversation that's far from slow - a playful nod to their flagship product's reputation.

In the news, we talk about the significant disparity in Canadians' monthly food spending, which has dropped as an index from $339 to $248. The discussion unfolds around the contentious carbon tax open letter, debates the merits of the newly announced National School Food Program by Prime Minister Justin Trudeau—a $1 billion investment over five years aiming to provide meals to an additional 400,000 children—and touches upon the emerging trends in grocery, including Amazon's venture into the sector.

The episode doesn't shy away from global challenges affecting the food industry, such as the bird flu outbreak in livestock and the rising popularity of butter as a simpler, healthier food ingredient amidst changing consumer preferences. It also discusses the financial implications of the surging prices of olive oil.

This episode is dedicated to SCTV's Joe Flaherty, celebrating his iconic roles and significant cultural impact.

Salute to SCTV's Joe Flaherty

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gnTjs0heRJo

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FPFAAGC0Jxo

About James

James is the 5th generation of the Crosby family to serve as President of Crosby Foods Ltd. His entrepreneurial spirit has forged the path for growth and innovation to provide consumers with new products in new categories under a better for you lens. James is impassioned to continue to provide consumers with foods they trust and expect from his family’s much loved brand, embraced by Canadians for the past 145 years.

James graduated from Queen’s University (B. Comm) and holds a professional designation with the Canadian Logistics Institute. James serves on the board of directors of Food, Health, and Consumer Products of Canada (FHCP), and Food Producers of Canada (FPC). He is also a member of the Young Presidents Organization (YPO).

James is married with 3 children and enjoys skiing, basketball, and golf. Other interests include reading, music, and politics.

About Lori

An experienced and successful brand builder with success in CPG marketing, specializing in the wine & spirits industry. Strong reputation for brand creation, product development, packaging and program innovation.
Skilled in developing and managing multi functional areas to ensure all resources are working most efficiently.
Experienced in the US and Canadian marketplaces.
Lori has successfully developed, launched and built brands in the premium wine, luxury spirits and craft beer categories, throughout the US, Canada and Europe.
Specialties:
Brand Creation
Innovation
Product Development
Packaging
Brand & Portfolio Strategy
Naming
Creative Direction
Short film production
Art Direction
Copywriting
Sales
Hospitality/Tasting Room Guest Experience
Marketing Collateral
Social Media Planning
Printing Consultation

The Food Professor #podcast is presented by Caddle.

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.

Michael LeBlanc is the president and founder of M.E. LeBlanc & Company Inc, a senior retail advisor, keynote speaker and now, media entrepreneur. He has been on the front lines of retail industry change for his entire career.

Michael has delivered keynotes, hosted fire-side discussions and participated worldwide in thought leadership panels, most recently on the main stage in Toronto at Retail Council of Canada’s Retail Marketing conference with leaders from Walmart & Google. He brings 25+ years of brand/retail/marketing & eCommerce leadership experience with Levi's, Black & Decker, Hudson's Bay, CanWest Media, Pandora Jewellery, The Shopping Channel and Retail Council of Canada to his advisory, speaking and media practice.

Michael produces and hosts a network of leading retail trade podcasts, including the award-winning No.1 independent retail industry podcast in America, Remarkable Retail with his partner, Dallas-based best-selling author Steve Dennis; Canada's top retail industry podcast The Voice of Retail and Canada's top food industry and one of the top Canadian-produced management independent podcasts in the country, The Food Professor with Dr. Sylvain Charlebois from Dalhousie University in Halifax.

Rethink Retail has recognized Michael as one of the top global retail experts for the fourth year in a row, Thinkers 360 has named him on of the Top 50 global thought leaders in retail, RTIH has named him a top 100 global though leader in retail technology and Coresight Research has named Michael a Retail AI Influencer. If you are a BBQ fan, you can tune into Michael’s cooking show, Last Request BBQ, on YouTube, Instagram, X and yes, TikTok.

Michael is available for keynote presentations helping retailers, brands and retail industry insiders explaining the current state and future of the retail industry in North America and around the world.