The Food Professor Michael LeBlanc, Dr. Sylvain Charlebois

This week, our guest, Adekambi (Kambi) Laleye, co-founder and CEO of UpTaste, discusses their SIAL award-winning automated in-store sampling solution. We covered the latest RCC Excellence in Retail Awards, Eataly's Toronto expansions, grocery theft numbers, the Heinz-Kraft deal, the debate on cashiers sitting down on the job, and the upcoming Bank of Canada decision on interest rates.

On this episode, our guests are Jennifer Zimmermann and Amy Bronstetter, co-founders of Epic Tofu and winners of SIAL Canada's Start-Up Pitch Competition, and Colleen Martin from Caddle, who shares exclusive BBQ trends research. The episode also covers SIAL highlights, inflation, H5N1-dairy hearings behind closed doors in Ottawa, and Red Lobster's demise.

We are live from Montreal's SIAL's Food Innovation Show. We discuss our first day at the show and our numerous interactions with industry professionals. Our special guest here in Montreal is Marc Vaucher, Senior Investment Director at Scale AI, Canada's AI Global Innovation Cluster. We also talk about the state of Canada's supply chain, changes at Saputo and Chuck E. Cheese, and a big new plant for the Little Potatoe Company in Alberta.

In this episode, we are thrilled to have Professor Tony Walker, a distinguished environmental scientist from Dalhousie University, as our guest. Professor Walker shared profound insights from his recent groundbreaking study on plastics in the food industry, a study that has been widely recognized and published in the prestigious journal Science. We provided an update on the bird flu outbreak affecting U.S. dairy, a situation that has led to increased vigilance in Canada. We discussed Florida's pioneering ban on meat produced from cell cultures, a move that is being considered by other states including Alabama. The discussion also included allegations of fraudulent cooking oil from China and Starbucks' challenges.

This episode features our guest Chamali Kodikara from the University of Manitoba discussing her role in food science and on the IFTSA Board. We explore grocery boycotts, troubling developments around the bird flu outbreak in U.S. cows, McDonald's sales decline, Shake Shack's Canadian expansion, and Quebec's liquor board culling local spirits and the tyranny of choice.

In the latest episode of "The Food Professor" podcast, we have the privilege of hosting Tanner Townsend from Uncle Bob Popcorn in Ontario. Broadcasting from Dallas, Texas, Michael also touches on his participation in a book launch for "Leaders Leap" with Steve Dennis and plans for a barbecue tour in Austin. The episode shifts to cover significant industry news, starting with a new study on food safety that Sylvain finds alarming; we delve into the issue of "shrinkflation" in grocery stores, comparing tactics on the shelf and consumer reactions internationally. Additionally, the episode addresses the Gate Gourmet Canada strike and the implications of California's new $20/hr minimum wage law.